NHPC Planning Clean Energy Projects of 27 GW in 9 States, Nepal: CMD

State-owned NHPC has plans to set up new hydro and solar projects of more than 27,000 MW capacity in nine states and neighbouring country Nepal, the company’s CMD Abhay Kumar Singh has said.

The new capacities would come up in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, Singh told PTI in an interview.

NHPC is in talks with some of these states which have shown interest in the projects. Others will also be engaged for the purpose, the CMD said. As a PSU, the firm has also been behind efforts in laggard states, especially those in East India to find ways to support more renewable adoption there.  Incidentally, some of these states are also the most dependent on thermal power currently, with Hydro the only source that will qualify under renewable for them. Another PSU, SJVN has also been similarly pushing for more solar projects in these states now.

Singh said that Nepal has also shown interest in hydro projects in joint venture with NHPC. Singh had met with the Nepal Prime Minister during his recent visit to that country.

When asked about fund availability for the projects, he said, “At present NHPC will not have a problem in making a capital expenditure of Rs 10,000 crore. We are in profit of about Rs 3,500 crore and it will increase further to Rs 5,000 crore substantially helping us to increase our capex to Rs 13,000 crore.”

Speaking further, he said there were certain NHPC projects especially in the Northeast which were stalled for long. Efforts have been taken to resume them.

He added that the 2,000 MW Subansiri lower hydroelectric project in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh is progressing well. In Dibang also, all hurdles have ended and the 2,880-MW dam project will begin soon.

NHPC is presently working on projects of total 6,000 MW capacity and another 9,000-10,000 MW is in the pipeline, Singh said. He said the company will meet its target of 50,000 MW energy capacity which includes solar, within time.

“We have made a break up of the target by 2025, 2030, 2040 how much capacity we have to install and accordingly we will be meeting our targets. And we will reach our goal within time,” the CMD said. NHPC, under the Ministry of Power, is the largest hydro power company in India.