We already have 65 EV charging stations and we are expanding: Praveer Sinha, Tata Power
We are still very focussed on deleveraging our balance sheet and divestments are in progress, says Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power. Excerpts from an interview with ETNOW.
It has been a tough environment for power companies, especially with the worry over coal availability and discom stress. How are things moving? How would you rate first quarter in the backdrop of such a tough environment?
Yes, the power sector has been going through a lot of challenges and there have been issues in terms of the discoms’ ability to pay and some of the new things which have come up, especially in the renewable space, with the Andhra government trying to reopen some of the PPAs. So yes, the sector is facing challenge.
As far as Tata PowerNSE -0.42 % is concerned, we had a good quarter, our revenues were up. Our EBITDA was nearly 29% up, our profits were up especially on a like-to-like basis. It was up by nearly 29% and so this has been a good quarter for us. We continue to do a lot of consolidation. We are still very focussed on deleveraging our balance sheet and divestments are in progress. We have already kept two of our foreign assets for sale and we are progressing well in all those areas.
What is the ambition and roadmap for setting out EV charging stations across the country? Do you see meaningful revenue from this vertical? How do you intend to charge for the EV stations?
EV charging is a new business area for Tata Power and we are trying to play an end-to-end role wherein we would provide the EV charging. We would also arrange for the power that is required especially it would be intermittent and sometimes very large quantity of energy would be required and also the customer experience in terms of the software that needs to be provided. We are very bullish about it. We feel there is a great opportunity, both for home charging which individual car owners will typically have and also public charging.
Also there would be some charging facilities which will be for any of the bus charging or fleet owners who would be having. So we feel quite excited about it but the important aspect in this is the penetration of electric vehicles that requires to be seen and if that is a little bit of a slow starter in terms of the penetration hopefully in the next two, three years, we expect that a large number of electric vehicles will come and the consumer will have a choice of buying those.
Did you say that you will have the EV charging stations setup ready?
Already, we have nearly 65 EV Charging stations in Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad and we are looking at expanding. Last week, we started in Pune also. So we are quite gung-ho and excited about it but it depends how quickly the electric vehicle penetration takes place.
Tell us a little more about the Mundra UMPP. How are discussions with various state governments and state discoms progressing and when can we expect a resolution and post that a CERC resolution?
The Mundra discussions have been going on very well. There is a general acceptance by all the state governments and this was evident when a meeting was convened on July 17 by the Union Power Secretary in which five state power secretaries and discoms heads were present. All of them said that they want this power as even with the revised tariff, this will continue to be very low cost power and it will be in the merit order. It is in interest of everyone that the plant continues to operate and they are all very keen to sort this out. It requires administrative approval of the state governments and a process has to be followed, not only by the energy department or the state power department but also by finance and the state cabinet.
It is going through the rounds, you can that much push and expedite it, the states have their own priorities but the good news is that all the states are looking at it positively and they are on board to do it.
What are the key drivers for EBITDA growth in the quarter? There has been a significant improvement in Mundra losses. How have renewables done in this particular quarter gone by?
The Mundra performance has been very good. From last year average under-recovery of nearly 94 paisa we came down to 55 paisa and this has been possible due to a number of facts; a)The softening of the coal prices but also because b)we have taken a huge amount of effort in terms of sourcing of coal, in terms of blending of coal and we expect that many of these will get institutionalised and will continue in future too.
We also expect our other businesses to continue to do well. The EBITDA of our renewable business has increased by nearly 15% in this quarter. So all our existing operations, our generation businesses in Maithon and in Mumbai, our transmission and distribution business in Delhi and Mumbai all of them continue to do well and we expect that the performance will continue in the subsequent quarters also.
Source : economictimes
