Tata Power joins race for Equis hydropower projects in Sikkim
The sale of Equis’s two hydropower projects in Sikkim is expected to be worth around $400 million
Mumbai: Tata Power Ltd has expressed interest in buying two hydroelectric power projects in Sikkim owned by Asian infrastructure investor Equis Energy, two people aware of the development said. Equis owns and operates 220 megawatts (MW) of hydro assets in Sikkim through a platform called Hydreq. Mint reported on 1 May that Equis had kick-started a process to sell off these projects.
“EY’s investment banking team is running the sale process for Hydreq. Several major domestic power companies with interest in renewables have been approached for the sale. Tata Power is one of the couple of entities that is taking a serious look at the deal,” said one of the two people cited above, requesting anonymity as the talks are private. The sale of the two hydro assets is expected to be worth around $400 million, or ₹ 2,700 crore, he added.
With its interest in the Equis hydropower assets, Tata Power joins renewable major Greenko Group, which has also evinced interest in these assets. On 16 July, Mint reported that Greenko was in talks with Equis to acquire the 220MW of hydro assets.
Emails sent on Friday to Tata Power Ltd, EY and Equis were not answered.
Tata Power’s total renewable portfolio stood at a capacity of 2,153 MW as of 31 March 2018, according to its quarterly investor presentation.
The company has also been eyeing other inorganic opportunities in the renewables space.
In May, Mint reported that Tata Power was in talks to acquire Essel Infraprojects’ 685 MW solar projects. Earlier in 2016, it had bought a 1.1 GW renewable energy portfolio of Welspun Energy Ltd for $1.4 billion.
Tata Power has said that it is aiming to draw up to 40% of its generation capacity from renewable energy sources by 2025. It has also set a target to expand the capacity of its renewable energy unit to 20,000 MW during this period.
Source: livemint
