JSW Energy will revisit capacity addition commitments it made previously as it expects to reach the aggregate target a few years ahead of the deadline.
After two acquisitions in a space of just six months, by the end of FY25, JSW Energy achieved more than 60% of the announced target of 20 GW by 2030. It added 3.6 GW during FY25, which was its highest-ever in a year.
Sharad Mahendra, joint managing director and CEO, JSW Energy, said, “This year we will be adding more than we did last year. With the kind of capacity we are putting up, we will be achieving the 20 GW target a few years earlier than planned.”
When asked what the revised target for 2030 will be, Mahendra said, “We will talk about it in Strategy 3.0 which will be announced at the end of Q1 or Q2 of this year (FY26).”
A Rs 16,000-crore project comprising two units of 800 MW each will come up before 2030. Through a competitive bidding process conducted by the West Bengal Power Development Corporation, this greenfield coal-fired power plant is scheduled for commissioning over the next four years.
In 2024, JSW Energy had earmarked a capital expenditure of Rs 115,000 crore to expand to 20 GW by the turn of the decade. Of this, Rs 16,000-17,000 crore has already been invested, it said.
Besides, power generation the company is focusing on power storage systems also. It has a pumped hydro storage project of 12GWh and 1.8 GWh of battery energy storage systems under development in various projects.
“A lot of states have come out with bids for solar and storage. We have participated and won some of them. But for longer storage like 6-8 hours, when the battery is not viable there is pumped storage. We have won a bid there too and it would require 4-5 years to execute. But it is a large capacity – 1500 MW for 8 hours discharge,” Mahendra added.
The company’s battery systems plans also include battery production for the electric vehicle industry. JSW Group forayed into the automotive space in 2023 with the buying of stake in MG Motor India. Besides producing batteries for JSW MG Motor India, the group is planning an independent launch of its own EV products.
JSW Energy is in the process of finalising the EV battery technology it aims to pursue before making concrete plans with regards to investment, capacity and plant location, Mahendra added.
In the on-going quarter JSW Energy will commission the country’s largest green hydrogen project. A plant that will generate 3800 tonne of green hydrogen per annum and 30,000 tonne of green oxygen will be commissioned in Karnataka for JSW Steel.
Demand for power within the country in FY25 grew by 4.7%, which was lower than the preceding two years. “We expect demand growth this year to be better than last year but even if we take a conservative figure of 5-6%, in terms of energy, this is a significant number. India consumed close to 1700 billion units last year,” Mahendra added.