Hindustan Powerprojects Private Ltd. planning to invest Rs. 12,000 crore over the next two years.

The government's target of achieving 100 gigawatts of solar power capacity by 2022 has made renewable energy the future focus of conventional power generation companies such as Hindustan Powerprojects, which plans to invest Rs. 12,000 crore over the next two years to install 2 gigawatts of clean electricity.

'That's what broadly we would invest in the solar space in addition to what we have already done,' Hindustan Powerprojects chairman Ratul Puri told ET.

This amount is much more than what the company will invest in thermal generation over the same amount of time. Over the next two years, Rs. 5,000 crore investment is planned on the conventional side, Puri added. This is because conventional power takes longer to build and so the investment is spread out over a longer period of time. In making huge investments in renewable energy, Puri considers Hindustan Powerprojects to be broadly following the current trend line in India.

According to him, over 2017-2022, India can create 100 gigawatts of solar capacity but only 50 gigawatts of coal thermal power. This implies that India will invest over two times more in solar energy.

ET