After power generation, TPC looks at overseas for transmission

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With limited scope for private participation in the transmission sector in the country, the country's largest private utility Tata Power is looking at overseas opportunities, a senior company official has said.

"Currently, there is not much market for transmission and distribution in the country. We are a global company, so will continue to look at opportunities overseas with right type of risks," Tata Power managing director Anil Sardana said in an interaction.

The private utility forayed into the transmission sector by picking up a 51 per cent controlling stake in a 1,200-circuit km (high voltage 220 kv and 110 kv) Tala Transmission project.

The comments come on the heels of the company recently saying that it is on the lookout for external locations for generation as well as it is tired of the inordinate delays in project approvals, coupled with fuel supply shortage in the domestic market.

Tata Power, which has set a generation target of 26,000 MW by 2020, has shortlisted geographies, including Africa, Southeast Asia region, the Middle East, the Far East starting from Indonesia, Vietnam, etc for setting up power projects and is also looking overseas for fuel resources.

Currently, the company sources coal from four mines in Indonesia and two in Australia.

The Tala project is a joint venture between TPC and the state-run Power Grid Corporation. The JV company, named Powerlinks Transmission, has been formed primarily to evacuate power from the Tala hydro project in Bhutan to carry surplus electricity from the country’s Northeastern states to the Northern region.

Currently, PowerGrid is the major player in the transmission sector and is operating about 94,000 circuit km of transmission lines along with 154 sub-stations with a transformation capacity of over 1,31,000 mva (mega volt ampere).

PowerGrid plans to add 11,000 circuit km (ckm) network, 45,000 mva and over 20 substations this year to meet evacuation requirements with a total investment outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for the fiscal.

Besides this, the central transmission utility is also looking at opportunities overseas including SAARC countries as well as the Gulf and African markets.

"Even PowerGrid is now realising that there is opportunity in the international market. As we have partnered with them for the Tala project, we are in talks with them for similar association overseas," Sardana added.

The company had posted a 66 per cent decline in net profit for the first quarter of this fiscal at Rs 145.93 crore as compared to Rs 430.44 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Its consolidated revenues, however, grew 24.54 per cent at Rs 7,253.89 crore as against Rs 5,824.51 crore in the corresponding period in 2011.