Renew Power plans to invest Rs 44,000 cr by FY26: CEO Sumant Sinha

Renew Power is targeting to invest around Rs 44,000 crore till the end of FY26 to add up to 9 gigawatt of capacity, company’s chairman and CEO Sumant Sinha said on Monday.

The company, which has an installed capacity of 9.5 GW, is looking to invest both in wind and solar projects going forward that will require investments at the rate of about Rs 5.5 crore per MW, he said.

Sinha said the company has signed power purchase agreements for 5.5 GW of projects, which will be commissioned by the end of FY25, while in the case of another 3.5 GW, it has won bids but PPAs are yet to be signed.

Stating that it takes around Rs 4 crore per MW to install solar capacity and over Rs 7 crore for wind, and assuming a mix of 40:60 between the two, the average cost per MW of new capacity comes at over Rs 5 crore per MW.

At a ballpark level, we are looking to invest about Rs 44,000 crore, Sinha said, speaking after the launch of the second edition of his book ‘Fossil Free’.

When asked about the impact of hardening yields, he said the company is preferring to borrow domestically, where the bank is flush with liquidity and is avoiding any overseas borrowing.

The rate has increased by 0.50-0.75 per cent for domestic borrowings, while the same is much higher internationally, he said.

The company is not impacted by the conflict in the Middle East region, Sinha said.

Meanwhile, he said the company is also looking at the Green Hydrogen space for which it has already a joint venture with state-owned Indian Oil Corporation and L&T.

He also pitched for sops like import duty waivers for equipment, or extending the benefits of Special Economic Zones for the sector, and added that all these steps collectively have the power to reduce the overall costs of green hydrogen manufacturing by 20 per cent to about USD 2.75 per kilogram from the present USD 3.5.