Former Welspun Renewables Energy promoter and serial entrepreneur Vineet Mittal led Avaada Group which has set up 4 gigawatt (GW) of operational solar-wind capacity – after Welspun Renewables’ 1.2 GW assets were divested to Tata Power in 2016 in a USD1.4bn deal – currently has 4 GW under construction and 3 GW in the pipeline. Plans are to develop 11 GW independent power production (IPP) capacity by 2026 and 30 GW capacity by 2030, Mittal tells Fortune India in an exclusive interview. It will entail an investment of nearly USD 10bn or Rs 85,000 crore by 2030 in solar-wind energy, solar equipment, green hydrogen, and its derivatives and electrolysers. Mittal says the company has tied up equity funds required for the entire investment up to 2030.
Avaada is also setting up a 5 GW integrated solar module and cell manufacturing capacity. “We are making an integrated facility and this will be operational by 2025. By 2030, the group plans to scale up to 10 GW, along with backward integration into polysilicon, ingots, and wafers,” says Mittal. Avaada was awarded 3 GW of wafer-to-module manufacturing capacity under the second round of the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for high-efficiency solar PV modules, with a Rs 961 crore PLI incentive. In the second round of PLI, the government had allocated 39.6 GW capacity with an outlay of Rs 14,007 crore to 11 companies, including 16.8 GW for the wafers-cells-modules makers.
The third area where Avaada invests is in Green Hydrogen and derivatives like methanol and green ammonia. The first project of half million tonnes of green hydrogen to green ammonia will be fully operational by 2026.