Tata Power to invest up to $9 bn to expand renewable energy capacity

Tata Power plans to invest up to $9 billion to more than quadruple its renewable energy capacity to more than 20 gigawatts (GW) over the next five to six years, CEO Praveer Sinha said on Tuesday.

The company plans to invest 700 billion rupees ($8.36 billion) to 750 billion rupees ($8.95 billion) to expand its capacity and aims to fund the plan with a mix of internal accruals and debt, Sinha said.

Tata Power, which currently has 5 GW renewable energy capacity in large projects, will add another 5 GW capacity in the next one to two years and expand that to more than 20 GW by 2030, Sinha said.

"Renewable is a very important part of our growth and for the next few decades we expect to be one of the large players in the renewable space."

The company, a part of the salt-to-software Tata group, also has more than 8.8 GW of power generation capacity via thermal plants and aims to achieve 100% clean power generation by fiscal year 2045.

It is also coming up with customised solutions for round-the-clock power using a combination of solar, wind, battery storage and pumped storage, Sinha said.

Indian companies are increasingly adding to their renewable energy capacity, with the government aiming to add at least 500 GW of clean energy by 2030 to reduce emissions. ($1 = 83.8250 Indian rupees)