Two years after it dropped plans to set up wind power capacities in the US and Europe, the R18,854-crore (FY 2010 revenues) Tata Power is again eyeing the US, Spain, Portugal and Germany for a wind energy foray, its first outside India. The company, which has operational assets of 3,000 mw of power from a combination of resources including thermal, hydro, wind, geothermal and solar, has 225 mw of domestic wind power capacity at present, in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat.
Attractive returns of 15-16% on wind power, similar to other modes of power generation, the rising prices of primary sources of energy, especially fossil fuels, and the thrust on reducing carbon emissions are driving Tata Power to generate upto 20% of its power from cleaner fuels. The company, which is targeting a generation capacity of 25,000 mw by 2017, wants to add roughly 110 mw of wind power every year, and some of that would come from outside India. While Tata Power has gone alone in setting up wind power capacity in India, its foray into markets abroad will see it partnering with local companies in the business.
?We are looking at projects (in wind power) outside India,? S Padmanabhan, executive director ? operations, told FE. ?Two years back, when we looked at the US and Europe, we found them an expensive proposition. Wind power is limited by location. Also, the economics matters, since projects would be initially good, but can see value erosion in later years,? he added. Returns in India on wind power will be in the order of 15-16%, and outside India, between 8-10% in dollar terms, Padmanabhan said, adding Western Europe ? Spain, Portugal and Germany ? with many wind farms, and the west coast of the US, again with huge wind farms, are attractive. Yet another attraction is the priority in grid despatch. The company won’t be limited by capacity constraints since ?it has enough capabilities to add much more (to the existing wind power capacity), he added. Banmali Agrawala, executive director, strategy and business development, Tata Power, said, ?Even as we speak, we have more than 20% that comes from clean sources. Apart from wind and hydro, we also have waste gases from blast furnaces of Tata Steel. In the immediate future, we are adding more of coal capacity, but we are continuously adding wind, solar and geo thermal.?
Apart from the existing 3,000 mw (450 mw of hydroelectric, 225 mw of wind, 3 mw of solar, and the rest, thermal), Tata Power plans to commission 8,000-mw projects, under development now, in the next four years.