The recent capacity additions are in line with the group’s target of 1000MW capacity to be installed by 2015.The operating assets comprise two 5MW plants in Chamba and Kangra districts in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and a 10.25MW plant on the Arkavati river in the Indian state of Karnataka.
The Himachal Pradesh projects have high load factors with over 60% achieved due to the snow fed rivers in the state. The scheme in Karnataka is a rain-fed river with a load factor of up to 40%. All the schemes have long term contracts with state utilities and two of the three projects are certified for CDM or carbon credits. All three meet the group’s benchmark equity returns.
The transactions will have a total cost of EUR24m which Greenko expects to finance through borrowings of approximately 70% of the value and the equity recently raised from the global environmental fund subscription which closed on 25 November 2009.
Greenko has acquired licenses to develop a cluster of 25MW run-of-river hydro projects totalling 100MW on the Cauveri river in Karnataka which is a perennial river with very good hydrology. These are cascading projects and will raise Greenko’s secured capacity in Karnataka to over 100MW.
The projects are expected to benefit from high plant load factors due to their location on the river Cauveri, which has an estimated basin size of 27,700 square miles.
Anil Chalamalasetty, CEO of Greenko, said: “These transactions to acquire 120MW of hydro projects are another key step towards our previously stated aim of developing and owning over 1000MW of clean energy assets. The assets have a proven operating history and the new licenses are in a region with very good hydrological characteristics with the potential to have relatively short implementation times and provide attractive long term sustainable returns.”
