Adani, Torrent Power bag Rs 32,614 crore coal-based deals in India

By Chiranjivi Chakraborty

Adani Group’s power unit and Torrent Power Ltd. secured separate contracts worth a combined Rs 32,614 crore ($3.7 billion) from Madhya Pradesh to build coal-fired power plants, underscoring the country’s growing reliance on the fossil fuel to meet its energy needs.

MP Power Management Company Ltd. awarded Torrent Power a Rs 22,000 crore contract for a 1,600 megawatt ultra-supercritical plant, according to a stock exchange filing on Saturday. Meanwhile, Adani Power Ltd. won a Rs 10,500 crore contract to construct an 800MW coal-based power plant in the state.

India's peak power demand has been soaring.

Both companies will supply power from these plants to Madhya Pradesh’s distribution company at tariffs just above Rs 5.8 per kilowatt hour, filings showed. Torrent Power said its project marks its largest investment in the sector to date and is expected to generate annual revenue of Rs 6,500 crore.

The deals highlight India’s increasing dependence on coal — the dirtiest fossil fuel — even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi encourages more investments in clean energy. The country plans to install 500 gigawatts of renewable energy power capacity by the end of the decade, with major corporations committing billions of dollars to support the target.

India is also moving ahead with plans to expand coal-based power capacity. The government’s roadmap, unveiled in late 2023, calls for adding almost 88GW of new coal-based power by early 2032, a 63 per cent increase from an earlier proposal that year.