Public sector power-cum-mining company NLC India will add 650 MW of solar capacity in the current year. This will take its total RE capacity (mostly solar) past the 2-GW mark by March, the company’s Chairman and Managing Director, Prasanna Kumar Motupalli, told businessline recently.

NLC India, the first PSU to hit the 1-GW mark in RE capacity, puts up RE projects through its IPO-bound subsidiary NLC India Renewables Ltd (NRIL).

NIRL expects to have 10 GW of RE capacity under its belt by 2030.

The 650 MW that NIRL will add to its portfolio this year comprises the recently commissioned 300 MW at Barsingsar, Rajasthan; 300 MW to be commissioned by March at Khavda, Gujarat (part of a 600 MW solar plant that will supply power to Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd); and 50 MW at Neyveli on reclaimed mine land (a first on this scale in the country). The first two projects were won at tariffs of ₹2.52 and ₹2.7 a kWhr, respectively.

NIRL has taken the joint venture route to achieve its 2030 target of 10 GW. It has signed JV agreements with various State governments — Rajasthan (2 GW), Assam (1 GW) and Maharashtra (3 GW). It is in the process of forming one more with Odisha. A big advantage in this approach is the support of the local governments, especially in the procurement of land, Motupalli said.

Powercon’s energy studio

Powercon’s ‘energy studio’ at its Pune headquarters monitors 40 GW of wind and solar farms in 23 countries, including 2.5 GW in India. The studio is a “technical detective”, says Praveen Kakulte, Founder and CEO, Powercon, for it checks the performance of every component of every machine it is connected to in a bid to secure early alerts for any possible failures. Italian power major Enel is Powercon’s biggest customer; Enel has entrusted the monitoring of 27 GW of its assets to Powercon.

300 MW merchant plant

Last year, Powercon made news when Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners gave it the full charge of its upcoming 300 MW wind farm in Karnataka, a first order of its kind in India. Powercon would put up the plant and operate it for CIP, promising a certain quantum of generation. A third of the capacity has come up — with Envision’s 3.3 MW turbines — and the rest will be completed in six months, Praveen Kakulte, Founder and CEO, Powercon, said.

The most remarkable feature about the wind farm is that it is a merchant power plant — there is no power purchase agreement since all the power will be sold on the exchanges in the day-ahead market.

Kakulte said selling on the exchanges pays better. Asked if CIP, which has large plans for India, would put up its future projects, too, on merchant basis, Kakulte said he could not speak for CIP. He, however, did say, “I’m sure they would want to go in for this type of market”, as the returns are better.

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Published on February 16, 2026