Torrent Power has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of Maharashtra for three pumped storage hydro projects with a total capacity of 5,700 MW. In a regulatory filing, the company said that the projects would entail an investment of about Rs 27,000 crore and would provide employment to approximately 13,500 people during the construction period. “Torrent intends to execute these projects over a period of 5 years,” it said.
The project, Torrent Power said, would be executed at three sites identified by the company and this includes Karjat (3,000 MW) in Raigarh District, Maval, (1,200 MW) and Junnar (1,500 MW) in Pune District. All of these sites are off-stream and the projects are planned to provide a minimum of six hours of energy storage on a daily basis.
Pumped Storage Hydro is an established, proven and cost-effective technology for firm, flexible and dispatchable power. PSH is a configuration of two water reservoirs at different elevations. Water is pumped to the upper reservoir at the time of excess power when it is the cheapest. At the time of demand, water flow from upper reservoir to lower reservoir generates power with a hydraulic turbine. “PSH is a much superior solution than Battery for energy storage as it is cheaper, has a longer life of 40 years, provides longer duration storage of 6 to 10 hours with feasibility of multiple cycle operations during the day,” Torrent Power said.
Currently, Torrent Power has an aggregate installed generation capacity of ~4.1 GW, which consists largely of clean generation sources such as gas (2.7 GW) and renewables (1.07 GW). Further, it also has a renewable capacity of 0.7 GW under development and the company is entering the storage space to fulfill the void left in the grid by intermittent renewable power.
For the fourth quarter of FY23, Torrent Power reported consolidated net profit of Rs 483.93 crore, mainly on the back of higher revenues, while it had posted a consolidated net loss of Rs 487.37 crore in the quarter ended March 2022. Its total income rose to Rs 6,133.70 crore in the quarter from Rs 3,840.59 crore in the year-ago period. The company has a presence across the entire power value chain of generation, transmission and distribution. Chairman Samir Mehta had said, “FY23 has been an eventful year for the Company. During the year, we successfully integrated 5 acquisitions – licensed distribution businesses of Daman & Diu and Dadra Nagar Haveli, wind power plants of 156 MW and solar power plants of 125 MW. The company incurred a capex of Rs 2,938 crore during the year.”