JSW plans Rs. 75,000 cr investment to scale up capacity to 20 GW by FY30: CEO.

Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Energy plans to scale up its total capacity to 20GW with a total investment of Rs. 75,000 crore by financial year 2029-30 from a little over 4.5GW now, driven by renewable energy, a top executive told ET.

The company is on track to add an operational capacity of 2.5GW by June 2023 to its existing capacity and is close to signing power purchase agreements (PPA) for the entire new capacity. The board of the company has approved the plan to scale up its capacity to 20GW and the company has chalked out a plan for it, Prashant Jain, joint managing director and chief executive officer told ET.

“We initially planned a capacity of 10 gw (by FY25) but once we signed the PPA for the 2.5GW that is under construction right now, it has given us confidence on our execution capability and our ability to convert plans into PPAs...that’s why the board has asked us to make a medium term plan to have 20GW by 2030,” Jain said.

The capacity addition would be primarily through organic route but the company is open to acquisitions, if an asset fits its benchmarks. Jain said that the company’s debt reduction exercise and cash flows will help fund future growth.

JSW Energy reduced its net debt by Rs. 2,739 crore in FY21 to Rs. 6,206 crore. Its cash and cash equivalents stood at Rs. 2,137 crore.

Recently the company reported a net profit of Rs. 107 crore in the fourth quarter of 2020-21, marginally lower from Rs. 108 crore a year ago. The company’s total revenue declined to Rs. 1,614 crore in the quarter from Rs. 1,848 crore a year ago. The company said that the decline in revenue was primarily because it now bills group entities for captive power generation on “job work” basis, where they supply the coal and JSW Energy charges them only the fixed cost for generating power.

ET