No red lights halting Greenko development pipeline with addition of six run-of-river hydro plants in India

Indian renewable energy owner and operator Greenko has added six new run-of-river hydroelectric plants to its development pipeline, it was recently announced.

Funding for the projects will come in large part from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), which announced that it will invest approximately US$150 million into the projects via Greenko’s Mauritius division.

The six hydel plants will have a cumulative installed capacity of 425 MW and will be spread across India’s Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, both of which have attracted a number of interest from hydro developers in recent months.

Greenko said its two new Himachal Pradesh projects will be located in the Chamba District on a tributary of the Ravi River. The plants will have a combined installed capacity of 115 MW.

Meanwhile, the four to be located in Arunachal Pradesh will be located on a perennial tributary of the Tato River in the West Siang District. This area is particularly attractive, according to Greenko, as Arunachal is one of India’s most mountainous states due to much of it being containing the Himalayas. Greenko said these four projects will combine for 310 MW of installed capacity.

Work on all the projects is expected to begin in 2013, and is part of the company’s effort to have an operational capacity of about 2,000 MW of power generated by renewable sources by 2018.

“We are pleased to announce the addition of 425 MW to our northern hydro projects, with expansion in Himachal Pradesh and the addition of Arunachal Pradesh, secure in the knowledge that we have the technical capability to deliver them and now the financial fire power, thanks to the equity investment by GIC,” Greenko CEO Anil Chalamalasetty said.

Already, Greenko operates 11 run-of-river plants in Himachal with 71 Mw of combined installed capacity, with another 33.6 MW to come from two plants currently under construction. Also included in Greeko’s portfolio are 94.25 MW-worth of hydro power produced by five plants in Karnataka, with an additional 58 MW to come from three projects being constructed. The company is also building a 96 MW project in Sikkim.