Essar Power

Essar Power is one of India’s largest private sector power producers with a capacity of almost 3,900 MW across six multi-fuel plants in three Indian states and one thermal power plant in Canada. Of this, the Company operates 2,400 MW as an Independent Power Producer (IPP) with plants in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The remaining are Captive Power Plants (CPP) in Gujarat & Odisha. Essar Power has also invested in the transmission business and constructed a 465-km interstate transmission system which spans three Indian states. Essar has invested about INR 32,000 crore in the power portfolio, which includes INR 12,000 crore of equity. The company aims to bring down leverage in its balance sheet from INR 20,000 crore currently to aboutINR 7,500 crore. The deleveraging efforts include the debt restructuring in the IPPs, which were affected by the cancellation of coal mines and unviable pricing of imported thermal coal. Essar Power is in discussions, which are now at an advanced stage, with its lenders to restructure all existing debts. This Company has put together a clear programme to address the challenges faced by the IPPs and is confident of overcoming them in the current year. Power demand in India is increasing at a rate of 7% year-on-year and there are no new power generation capacities that are expected to be created in the near future. Essar Power, therefore, has an excellent opportunity to enter into new PPAs and utilise its entire generation capacity. The business is led by a strategy of stabilising existing operations, growing them and venturing into the renewable space.