TPC will invest about ₹13,000 crore in two projects — a 1,800MW PSP at Shirawata in Pune and a 1,000MW PSP at Bhivpuri in Raigad. “We will commission these two by 2027-2028 and have identified three potential sites with 9,000MW capacity,” says Praveer Sinha, CEO and MD, Tata Power.
In Mumbai, serial entrepreneur and Avaada Group chairman Vineet Mittal is also busy planning a new venture in renewables. His seven-year-old firm is into renewable energy generation with 4.5GW operating capacity in solar and wind and 4.5-5GW under construction. Avaada plans to manufacture solar PV cells, green ammonia, green methanol, and sustainable aviation fuel and energy storage solutions.
Mittal founded Welspun Renewables in early 2000 when solar was not even considered a potential business, grew it into a large venture and sold it to Tata Power for ₹10,000 crore in 2016. Another group firm, Avaada Water Battery, is all set to implement the Chicklik Pumped Storage Hydro project at Sonbhadra in U.P. “We have received state approval for the 1,567MW project. Environmental, other clearances are going on,” says Mittal.
It is the likes of Husk, Tata and Avaada’s initiatives that are firing up the domestic renewable energy sector. The target to install a minimum of 500GW capacity by 2030 calls for a new approach to RE power generation, not just scaling solar and wind projects and consuming huge tracts of land.
To stabilise the grid with renewables and meet peak power demand, new capacity addition requires innovative renewables such as pumped hydro, floating solar, and hybrid solar and wind projects, solar-powered agri-pumps, biomass and waste-to-energy, rooftop solar, run-of-the-river small hydroelectric projects, firm and dispatchable renewable energy projects and battery energy storage systems, besides greater reliance on micro-grids.
India’s renewable energy sector — the fourth largest in the world — is undergoing a transition to this next stage to meet zero-carbon sustainable goals by 2070 and power an impending green hydrogen-fuelled economy.