Chennai-based Clenergen Corporation India Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Clenergen Corporation USA, is set to acquire a 1.5-MW biomass power plant in Tamil Nadu. Post this development, the plant, which was shut down due to operational cash flow constraints in 2007, is expected to start operation by the end of this year. The owner of the asset, which Clenergan bought, could not be ascertained.
Clenergen Corporation has also signed a power purchase agreement with Power Trading Corporation of India Ltd (PTC) to sell power at a higher tariff rate. It will now supply 71MW of electricity to PTC for a 15-year period at an average price of 12 cents per KW hour. Clenergen expects the plant, which is located at Namakkal district in Tamil Nadu, would help it a top line growth of around $1 million in the first year of its operation, said a company statement. It has also planned to ramp up the power generation capacity of the plant to 10MW by the end of 2010.
Clenergen will also install two new biomass power projects in the state, a 16MW plant in Tamil Nadu and a 64MW plant in Karnataka. The company has estimated an expenditure of around $236 million for the proposed plants, and plans to raise $83 million in equity from the Indian stock markets. Clenergen expects the Tuticorin plant in Tamil Nadu to be commercially operational in the last quarter of 2010.
Arvind Pandalai, non executive group chairman of Clenergen stated that the Namakkal project is entirely carbon neutral based on anaerobic digestive technology that processes agri-biomass for energy generation.
Other cleantech companies which are spearheading the biomass segment in India include Singapore-based Allgreen Energy India and Chennai-based Auro Mira Energy. In January this year, Allgreen announced $102.2-million investment across 10 biomass projects in India. Auro Mira Energy has been generating around 18 MW power from its two biomass plants in Tamil Nadu. There are others like Orient Green Power and Shalivahna Green Energy who are looking to aggregate renewable energy assets across the country.