State-owned power giant NTPC arm NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd (NREL) will float a global engineering procurement and construction tender to set up a 3GW renewable energy project with a battery storage system worth around Rs 15,000 crore by February 2022, according to a senior official.

“The NREL has decided to float a global tender or RFP (request for proposal) for a 3GW renewable energy project (like solar and wind) with battery energy storage system in the next two months (by February 2022). This entails an investment of about Rs 15,000 crore,” the senior official told PTI.

A request for proposal (RFP) is a business document that announces a project, describes, and solicits bids from qualified contractors to complete it.

The development assumes significance given India’s ambitious target of having 175GW of renewable energy by 2022, including 100GW of solar and 60 GW of wind energy.

According to a Central Electricity Authority (CEA) report, as of November 30, 2022, India’s renewable energy capacity — excluding large hydro plants — is 104GW, including 49GW solar and 40GW of wind energy.

NREL, a 100 per cent subsidiary of NTPC Ltd, currently has a renewable project portfolio of 3,850 GW, of which, 970 MW projects are under construction and 2,880 MW projects have been won and are in different phases of implementation.

NREL is set to realise its target of having 60GW renewable energy (RE). The RE capacity of the NTPC is envisaged to be 45 per cent of its total 130 GW installed generation capacity by 2032.

The plan to have 60 GW RE capacity by 2032 would entail an investment of Rs 2.5 lakh crore. NTPC had incorporated NREL with the Registrar of Companies, NCT of Delhi & Haryana, on October 7, 2020, to undertake renewable energy business.

It has also planned to bring strategic investors for NREL to bring its share of equity below 50 per cent before its listing on bourses in October 2022.

The present installed capacity of NTPC Group is 67,907.5 MW (including 13,675 MW through JVs/Subsidiaries), comprising of 48 NTPC stations (23 coal-based, 7 gas-based, 1 hydro station, 1 small hydro, 15 solar PV and 1 wind-based) and 26 joint venture stations (9 coal-based, 4 gas-based, 8 hydro, 1 small hydro, 2 wind and 2 solar PV).