MC Interview | NTPC expects to add ‘significant’ renewable energy capacity in FY24: NTPCREL CEO

NTPCREL CEO, Mohit Bhargava said NTPC Group is going to have 5 GW of green hydrogen capacity. It will also build India's largest green hydrogen hub near Vizag.

After being labelled a key polluter for its large-scale thermal power generation, NTPC Ltd is trying to reorient itself with India’s target of installing 500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2030. It has floated one of the biggest energy storage tenders in the country and also plans to have its own pumped storage plants (PSPs), apart from green hydrogen projects.

Pumped storage hydropower plants act like giant batteries and are essential for the storage of solar and wind energy, that are mired with problems of intermittency. PSPs use gravity to generate electricity with water previously pumped into an upper reservoir from a lower level. The water released drives a turbine in a powerhouse and feeds electricity into the grid.

In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Mohit Bhargava, CEO of NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd. (NTPCREL), spoke about its green energy plans.

Edited excerpts:

We have actually already achieved about 3.2 GW and we have another close to 5 GW under construction. We are also working on projects of another 10 GW capacity. So, we are working on a pipeline of about 17-18 GW as of now.

The plan is to actually move forward quickly, and there are three or four critical pillars on how we're doing it. The larger pillar, of course, is to win bids through the tariff-based bidding system. Then, we're also looking very closely at the commercial and industrial sector. We recently signed an agreement with Indian Oil Corporation and also with the Indian Army. So this is also one of the ways we're trying to move forward.

Besides, we're also looking at setting up projects without having long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). So, we could be doing that and selling on the exchange. We are already selling about 100 megawatts (MW) on the exchange. So that's the broader plan.

All in all, out of 60 GW, we believe about 40 GW would come through long-term PPAs, about 15 GW would probably be medium-term or short-term PPAs, and about 5 GW we're completely setting aside for green hydrogen.

Look, 2024 is still some time out because a lot of things have happened only recently. For example, the government has kept the mandated Approved List of Models and Manufacturers in abeyance and allowed time for one more year. So, I would hope that a lot of projects, which are getting delayed first on account of Covid-19 and then on account of supply chain issues, will probably get fructified now.

Just looking back at last year, we actually did about 1.4 GW of new renewable energy capacity addition, which is the largest we've done in any year so far. Now we hope to better that by a significant margin this financial year.

I would prefer not to put a number because a lot of these things are still stuck in clearances and permits from the governments - state governments and the Central government. We are hopeful that those will get sorted out and we will be able to move forward.

Yes, we did face problems in accelerating the solar sector. We had issues in terms of availability of domestic modules at the right prices. But now, with the latest decision of the government of keeping the ALMM order in abeyance for a year, we hope that we'll have better competition and more importantly, module availability will increase dramatically, which will enable a lot of us, including NTPC and the other private developers, to implement various projects. So, that's one big hope.

This will also help us move forward quickly with about 15 GW of our projects that are in the pipeline as we speak. Hopefully, domestic manufacturers will also come in line in maybe the next 18 to 20 months, which will help the sector.

The new thing is that we are looking at getting into pumped storage projects (PSPs) and we plan to do these PSP projects ourselves. We are in discussion with a couple of state governments for allocation of PSP projects.

We have closed the tender for 3 GWh, which was the largest at the time the tender was floated. Now, we intend to come out with a tender for the next one, which is around 9 GWh. This also will hope to close because a lot of this capacity will go to people who intend to buy round-the-clock power from us, which requires storage. So, that's the plan as of now.

We're also looking at other storage technologies, which are at pilot stage now, but which could actually fructify to a larger one.

On green hydrogen, we have actually started three pilots, one of which we've already commissioned. We have already started blending green hydrogen to the natural gas pipeline at NTPC Kawas in Gujarat. This is basically for domestic gas supply, where we started blending 5 percent green hydrogen.

Our green hydrogen mobility project in Leh is also on track and we hope to roll out the first bus, maybe sometime in September or October this year. So, that should be another unique project.

The third one is the green methanol project in which we will be capturing carbon dioxide and mixing with green hydrogen to produce green methanol. So, these are the three pilot projects.

We recently signed an agreement with the government of Andhra Pradesh for developing potentially India's largest hydrogen hub near Vizag. So, these are the immediate developments and we are, of course, in discussions with a couple of other people for off-taking either green hydrogen or green ammonia.

We have a long way to go. So, let's see.