Reliance Power aims at a 25-fold rise in capacity in five years

Reliance Power plans to become the largest private power producer in the country by 2015 with an installed capacity of 25,000 mw, said chairman Anil Ambani here on Tuesday.

The company has its own installed capacity of 600 mw at Rosa in Uttar Pradesh in addition to the 433 mw transferred to it by Reliance Infrastructure earlier this year.

“We will have a capacity 5,000 mw in the next 24 months,” Ambani told shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting.
The company will add another 20,000 mw in the three years to 2015 and commission all of its planned 35,000 mw two years hence.

About 53% of Reliance Power’s portfolio is coal-based power, including the three ultra mega power projects of 4,000 mw each in Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The only other UMPP awarded by the government so far, at Mundra in Gujarat, is being developed by Tata Power. Presently the biggest power generator in the private sector, with an operational capacity of 2,977 mw, Tata Power plans to reach the 25,000 mw mark by 2017 with an outlay of Rs70,000 crore.

Reliance Power will commission 1,000 mw of wind  and solar power in the next five years and 3,000 mw of hydel power by 2016, Ambani said. Green power constitutes 3% and hydel 14% of the company’s planned capacity.

The remaining 30% capacity would be gas-based.

“We have begun construction of the 2,400 mw gas-based thermal project at Samalkot in Andhra Pradesh,” noted Ambani. The company hopes to commission it in two years and is also developing a 7,500 mw plant at Dadri in UP.

“Subsequent to the judgement of the Supreme Court on the gas issue, we have embarked upon fulfilling our vision of developing up to 10,000 mw of gas-based generation capacity,” he said.