JSW Renewable Energy Vijayanagar Limited, a subsidiary of JSW Energy, has commenced operations at the 225 MW Solar plant at Vijayanagar, Karnataka. This project is part of the earlier announced 958MW Solar and Wind Projects signed (25 year PPA) with JSW Steel under the Group Captive scheme. This solar project has commenced operations in a record time of less than 12 months despite several headwinds like Covid-19 related disruptions, elevated commodity prices, and global supply chain outages.
Apart from this, the company is also constructing 2.25GW of greenfield renewable energy capacity in pursuit of reaching 10 GW capacity by FY25, and 20 GW capacity by FY30, entirely driven by renewables.
Prashant Jain, Joint Managing Director and CEO of JSW Energy, said: “Commencement of operations at the 225MW solar plant within the scheduled timelines is a key landmark for the Company and testament to its world-class project execution capabilities. In the coming months, we remain upbeat to commence operations of our under-construction pipeline of 2GW wind projects, in phases. We will continue to contribute meaningfully in achieving India’s renewable capacity add and net-zero ambition driven targets”.
JSW Energy has set an ambitious target for a 50% reduction in its carbon footprint by 2030 and achieving Carbon Neutrality by 2050 by transitioning towards renewable energy. The Company has set a target to reach 20 GW capacity by 2030, with the share of renewable energy increasing to 85% of total. Around 2.25 GW of renewable energy projects are currently under-construction, Wind projects of 1.26 GW tied with SECI, are expected to be commissioned in the next 12 months. With the commissioning of these projects, the Company’s total generation capacity will increase to ~7 GW, with renewable energy share amounting to about 55%.
The Company is expeditiously securing resources of more than 20GW capacity in various resource rich states. Further, the Company is evaluating opportunities for expansion into emerging energy businesses of hydro pumped storage, battery energy storage, green hydrogen and energy products & services.
JSW Energy began commercial operations in 2000, with the commissioning of its first 2x130 MW thermal power plants at Vijayanagar, Karnataka. Since then, the company has steadily enhanced its power generation capacity from 260 MW to 4,559 MW having a portfolio of Thermal 3,158 MW, Hydel 1,391 MW & Solar 10 MW, ensuring diversity in geographic presence, fuel sources and power off-take arrangements. The Company is presently constructing various renewable power projects to the tune of 2.5 GW, with a vision to achieve a total power generation capacity of 20 GW by the year 2030, when the share of renewables in the total capacity will increase to ~ 85%.
