Engineering and construction major L&T is seeing significant opportunities in solar power projects and battery storage both in India and abroad, particularly in Central Asia.
“If you look at the West Asia today, where huge thermal solar photovoltaic plants are coming up, the clients have consciously started moving away from diesel,” T Madhava Das, company’s director and senior executive vice president told FE.
They are also start putting up gas turbines, combined cycle gas turbines to have the base, Das said .
L&T’s Power Transmission and Distribution (PT&D) division currently has about 15 to 16 gigawatts (GW) of solar projects under execution in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Das stated that countries such as Saudi Arabia are also pursuing wind energy projects due to favourable wind conditions.
The company is also involved in battery storage projects, executing around 10 to 11 gigawatt-hours in West Asia. He said that the firm has diversified into countries such as Uzbekistan to hedge risks and started doing some solar and battery projects there.
“Uzbekistan is one of the most upcoming destinations where maximum large solar developers such as Masdar, ACWA and others are going and investing a lot in that country,” he said.
In India, a mix of battery and solar projects is emerging at the state level, while the central government is rolling out large-scale solar and battery parks.
Domestically, L&T has a solar portfolio of 5.5 GWp, with 3 GWp already commissioned and 2.5 GWp currently under construction.
“So today, solar capacity will continue to increase, but there is good traction in battery projects as well. But solar will still dominate,” Das said, adding that they see a strong pipeline of upcoming projects from NTPC, SECI, and other large developers.
India has set an ambitious goal to install 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, of which 300 GW is expected to come from solar power.
In total, across both domestic and international markets, L&T is executing about 16 to 20 GW of renewable EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) projects in various stages of development.
Battery projects
Das said that the country needs a stable grid to manage the intermittency of wind and solar generation. Until battery storage is scaled up and fully integrated, thermal power will remain essential.
“Thermal will remain a mainstay in countries such as India, where nuclear is still ramping up and we don’t have that sort of gas-based backup,” he said.
He added that the government’s recent push to increase thermal capacity is aimed at ensuring power availability during peak demand periods.
“The government’s policy of bringing in batteries, increasing battery capacities, setting up battery parks, and so on, is to ensure that whenever there is low electricity demand leading to curtailment of solar, we can use it for battery charging—and that can enable energy shifting,” he stated.
Although renewables now contribute nearly half of the country’s installed power generation capacity, they currently meet only about 15% of actual power demand. This is expected to rise to 30% by 2030, according to estimates.