Tata Power hives off renewable assets, eyes M&As for clean energy

By Anuradha Verma

  • 12 Nov 2015
Other | Credit: Reuters

Tata Power Co. Ltd has hived off its clean energy business into a new unit to enhance focus on expanding its renewable energy capacity, the electricity producer said in a statement.

The unit Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd (TPREL) would look at raising capital to ramp up capacity through greenfield projects and to pursue merger and acquisition opportunities, the statement said.

As part of the restructuring, Tata Power has aggregated its 500MW of renewable energy assets, including wind and solar, to TPREL.

The assets include 376.5 MW of wind assets in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, 3 MW of solar assets in Mulshi and 120 MW of waste heat recovery-based power plants at Haldia, West Bengal.

The other four renewable energy assets – Supa (17MW), Niveda (21 MW), Poolavadi (99MW) and Haldia (120 MW) will be transferred to four wholly owned subsidiaries of TPREL.

"We aim to create a focused clean and renewable energy business in TPREL with its own growth trajectory,” said Anil Sardana, CEO and MD, Tata Power.

“Since the aggregation of renewable assets is being done to a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, the shareholders in the parent company shall have the same or better value accruing to them as earlier, even after the proposed restructuring,” he said.

Through the transfer of assets, Tata Power aims to grow its generation capacity from clean energy sources 15 to 20 per cent. TPREL’s installed capacity is almost 220 MW, including 158 MW of wind and 54 of solar. It has 250 MW of renewable energy projects under construction.

After the restructuring, which is subject to required approvals, the total installed capacity of TPREL will be about 720 MW with an additional 250 MW under construction.

Tata Power, together with its subsidiaries, has total installed generation capacity of 8,669 MW in the country and is also present is countries like Singapore, Indonesia, South Africa, Australia, among others.

India aims to have 175 GW of renewable power capacity by 2022, including 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind.