'Invested About Rs 2000 Crore On The Entire Stretch Before Padgha': Sterlite Power MD Pratik Agarwal
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00:00Mumbai Urja Bharg Private Limited, a subsidiary of Sterlite Power, is setting up a 2,000 megawatt
00:09additional transmission capacity from Padga till Khargar in Mumbai.
00:14This is likely to increase the overall capacity for Mumbaikars as far as power is concerned
00:19and is also expected to bring down the power tariff in the long term.
00:22We have with us Mr. Pratik Agarwal, who is the Managing Director of Sterlite Power to
00:27talk to us about this project, the challenges they face and how it's going to help Mumbai
00:31in the long run.
00:32Welcome to NDTV, Prof. Mr. Agarwal.
00:34Thank you very much.
00:35So, take our audience to this project, you know, we can see that it's in the hilly terrain
00:40and we also understand the choppers were used and a lot of other, you know, uniqueness about
00:44this project.
00:45Talk to us about that.
00:46So, you know, maybe I'll start by talking about the importance of this project, right.
00:51Mumbai as we all know is the financial capital of our country.
00:55Mumbai's power consumption is growing at close to double digits every year and today
00:59Mumbai consumes at peak 4,500 megawatts, right, so that's a large amount of power.
01:06And one of the challenges in Mumbai we've seen recently is that the number of load shedding
01:11and power outages have gone up quite dramatically in the last three to five years, including
01:15even in South Mumbai.
01:17And sometime around 2020, we had a very large power outage in Mumbai.
01:21So this is happening because Mumbai doesn't have enough import capacity.
01:25Mumbai produces very limited power.
01:26Only one-third of the power they consume is produced within Mumbai in Trombay and Dahanu.
01:31The rest is imported from rest of the country and for that it requires transmission lines.
01:36The second is the price of power.
01:38Mumbai is paying at least one to two rupees higher than most of the metros in India and
01:42is paying three to four rupees higher than metros around rest of the world.
01:46And for a financial capital to bear such a large burden is reducing the competitiveness
01:50of Mumbai.
01:51And lastly, environment.
01:53As we know, Mumbai is very, very important to have best air quality, we should have not
01:59only in Mumbai but in the whole world, but especially in Mumbai where we want the most
02:03important industrialist business, commercial capital of the country and to live here, the
02:09air quality must be as good as the best cities in the world.
02:12And one of the challenges with that is the pollution in Mumbai because of the coal consumption
02:16within Mumbai.
02:17So the MUML project that you mentioned is there to solve all these three challenges.
02:21This project was commissioned by the government of India, the central government around five
02:27years ago and was awarded to us around three, three and a half years ago.
02:30We won this project through a competitive auction to build, own and operate this project
02:34for 35-year period.
02:36So this project is bringing in up to 2000 megawatts of power from the central grid station
02:42in Padgha all the way into Khargar and Ravi Mumbai.
02:45And from there, the power will flow in all of the greater MMR region as well as into
02:50the south Mumbai, central Mumbai through the Adani lines as well as the Tata lines.
02:56So effectively, this is giving power to all of Mumbai.
03:00So building a 100-kilometer linear project, you know, spanning almost 50 meters through
03:07the length and breadth of Mumbai is a very, very challenging project.
03:11Because Mumbai is the most highest population density city in the world, amongst the top
03:17three highest population density.
03:19So imagine every kilometer, you're dealing with hundreds, if not multiples of hundreds
03:25of people.
03:26And as per the constitution, as per the act, we are not purchasing this land, we are paying
03:31a right to use charges under the Telegraphic Act.
03:34So you have to actually convince thousands of landowners, some of whom are in the heart
03:39of Mumbai and Ravi Mumbai, to actually allow us to build this project in their area, on
03:44top of their land.
03:45You also have to convince various authorities, national highway, state highway, forest, municipal
03:50bodies, transmission companies, utility companies, water pipelines, all of them have to give
03:54you the approval, only then you can even start construction.
03:57So this entire feat to achieve in a short period of three years is very, very challenging.
04:02And I want to give credit to my team that did a wonderful job with regards to stakeholder
04:07management.
04:08It's very easy to use force and to use the law, which is on our side in this project,
04:11but we decided never to do that.
04:13As a company, our strong practices are that we engage with the communities, we convince
04:18them that this project is for the greater good.
04:20And we find that in most situations, people are happy to help, people find a win-win constructive
04:25solution.
04:26Also, in this particular case, we had tremendous support both from the central government and
04:30the state government, right from the chief minister to the deputy chief minister, to
04:34various bureaucrats, all were involved in helping us do this project on time.
04:39So going ahead, how do you think this project is really going to help as far as Mumbai's
04:44requirement or demand for power is concerned?
04:46Right now, we already have a challenging situation.
04:49We have a demand of almost 4,125 megawatts, so how much it's going to increase and how
04:54much can this line provide to Mumbai?
04:57So like you said, Mumbai consumes 4,500 megawatts.
05:00This line, if operated in the right environments, could transmit an additional 2,000.
05:05So that's almost a 40% increase of capacity.
05:08That's a huge increase in capacity.
05:10Now what does this do?
05:11Apart from giving you uninterrupted 24-7 power from any part of the country, this allows
05:16the distribution companies of Mumbai to buy the cheapest power available on a given day.
05:21As you know, India works on a daily exchange and every day the price fluctuates.
05:26If you have access to transmission, you can choose which power should I buy.
05:29Should I buy cheap solar power from Rajasthan?
05:31Should I buy cheap hydro power from Northeast?
05:34Should I buy wind power from South?
05:35But if you have limited transmission lines, you are tied up and you can only buy those
05:39power that you've already contracted.
05:41So that's a huge benefit which will ultimately reduce the cost of power in Mumbai.
05:45I think this is probably the biggest economic impact of this line.
05:48Our estimate is it could reduce up to Rs. 1 to Rs. 2, the cost of power for citizens
05:53of Mumbai.
05:54And how soon can we expect that to happen as far as reduction in tariff is concerned?
05:58It will take maybe some initial impacts you can expect in 4 to 6 quarters from now as
06:04the line commissions and as the existing distribution companies are able to contract new capacity
06:10or buy in the short term market, that will begin to start flowing into the consumer will.
06:14But the overall impact will also come once some of the associated lines that are downstream
06:18and upstream of this project, they get commissioned.
06:21So over a 2-3 year period of time, one can expect some reasonable improvement.
06:25And also as far as you were talking about environmental challenges and burning coal
06:30in the midst or the heart of the city.
06:32So now, because Mumbai doesn't have a renewable capacity of its own, you know, we don't have
06:38any such hubs.
06:39Now, this 2000 megawatt can be solely devoted for sourcing even renewable power.
06:44That could be a possibility from green corridors of Gujarat.
06:47Exactly, exactly.
06:49So Mumbai, at the moment, like you said, has very limited creation of power.
06:55It generates only about 1200 megawatts of power, right?
06:58Now the beautiful thing about Mumbai is that the peak consumption is in the afternoon,
07:02unlike most parts of the country where peak consumption is in the evening.
07:06So when you have peak consumption in the afternoon, that is coinciding with the peak generation
07:09of solar, let's say in Rajasthan or eastern Maharashtra or parts of UP.
07:14And that is the time when power is the most green and is also the cheapest.
07:19So it's a dual benefit.
07:20Now Mumbai, while it is having perfect coinciding of that consumption pattern, was unable to
07:26source that cheap power and green power because of lack of transmission.
07:29So now it has two benefits.
07:31One is, Mumbai can soon import green solar power at its peak hours and reduce the peak
07:38hour pricing for its power.
07:40That's point number one.
07:41Point number two is even more important, right?
07:43We are a world-class city and in all, you'll find most cities in the world, around the
07:49world, including in India, they don't like to allow burning of fossil fuels within the
07:53city premises for natural reasons.
07:56As all the Mumbai residents know, I'm sure the viewers of your channel know, Mumbai has
07:59been experiencing increased pollution levels, worsening AQI, high PM10, high PM2.5, especially
08:05in the winter months of November to March, November to February.
08:11And this has been because of, one of the reasons of course is construction, but a second reason
08:15could be that we are still burning fossil fuels within our city limits.
08:19Now this was required because there was no other option.
08:21But with the creation of this line, now the regulators can decide that maybe they reduce
08:26the consumption of fossil fuels within the city down to emergency levels and they largely
08:31rely on this transmission line which can bring them green power and clean power from anywhere
08:36in the country.
08:37Right.
08:38And as far as transmission line is concerned, how soon can we expect, how soon can we expect
08:45the utilisation to go up to 100% you know, because as we know the Adani transmission
08:50line itself is right now only utilising 14% because of lack of sourcing.
08:55So with this and also for this transmission line, how soon can we expect the utilisation
09:00to go up to 100%?
09:02See that's the interesting question.
09:05Transmission lines are built for peak.
09:08No transmission line perhaps is ever designed to carry full 100% utilisation more than a
09:14few weeks or a few months in a year.
09:17Okay.
09:18Right.
09:19Because there are seasonal variations in power consumption.
09:20So I'm not…
09:21I won't be able to answer you.
09:22It's possible that it is 100% utilised on year one because this is having the lowest
09:26impedance and maybe the grid will prefer to use this line over other lines.
09:30Right.
09:31It's possible that in the next three, four years, as the… as the demand of power of
09:34Mumbai picks up, this line will get fully loaded.
09:36But one thing is for sure, from day one, the project like this will reduce the power outages
09:41in Mumbai, which frankly is the biggest requirement of our city.
09:44We can live with little bit more expensive power, but a city like Mumbai cannot live
09:48with poor quality power.
09:50Right.
09:51And with this kind of project there, do you think there is still requirement for more
09:54such transmission lines within Mumbai?
09:57I think there will be a continuous requirement.
10:00You know, all major cities in the world are continuously investing in improving their
10:03infrastructure.
10:04You know, I often like to compare transmission lines with roads.
10:07We saw in Mumbai, we have recently inaugurated coastal road, we have inaugurated Latal Setu
10:12and that has basically created connectivity, transport connectivity to different parts
10:16of Mumbai and that has practically changed our lives, where our traffic has come down
10:20and you know, the amount of time we spend commuting has come down by fifty percent in
10:23some cases.
10:24So, the transmission line has a very similar effect.
10:27The traffic congestion of power reduces and that eases the supply of power and cost of
10:32power.
10:33I think for this, continuous investment will be required.
10:35I think downstream of this line, which is within the limits of Mumbai, an upgradation
10:40will be required.
10:41We ourselves have won another project, which will bring power from Gujarat to Northern
10:45Maharashtra and that line will ultimately feed this line that we have just commissioned.
10:49So, continuous upgradation will be required.
10:52India will spend fifty billion US dollars in the next seven years on transmission and
10:56probably at least ten, twenty percent of that will be in the Mumbai-Maharashtra region.
11:01Like you spoke about upgrading the inside or within the city limits, you know, infrastructure
11:06also needs upgradation.
11:08So, what kind of upgradation is required there and do you think till that happens, getting
11:13all these transmission lines to the city limits would be serving only half a purpose till
11:18that happens?
11:19See, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
11:23We all learned this in school.
11:25Now, if you try and strengthen the whole link at one time, that is not humanly possible
11:29because the link is very, very long.
11:31You start in Mumbai, you go to the, says, state pooling station, central pooling station,
11:36all the way to the generation station, it could be thousand kilometers end to end that
11:40link, right?
11:41So, you have to do in bits and pieces.
11:42Certainly, this project is the most critical project today for better power supply in Mumbai
11:48and immediately upon commissioning of this project, the power supply situation should
11:52improve in Mumbai and lot of the downstream infrastructure should get used.
11:56Having said that, in time to come, especially some of the utilities have aging infrastructure
12:00in some parts of the city, they will require upgradation, changing transformers, increasing
12:07the cable voltage size, maybe even increasing the cable and the voltage management system.
12:11All of those things will be required in all cities.
12:14And what has been your investment on this project?
12:16So, we don't disclose investments, but the investment has been more than 2000 crores
12:22on this entire SPV, which also includes not just the Mumbai project, but also a small
12:26part in Gujarat and a small part in North East.
12:29Okay.
12:30And as coming to Sterlite Power as such, because you are a major transmission player, do you
12:36think or rather I would like to ask, as far as your cable business is concerned, transmission
12:41business is concerned, where do you see the major part of focus going ahead for this next
12:47two or three years?
12:48So, in the power-related businesses of our group, we have several verticals.
12:54I'll talk about three of them.
12:56One of them is the power transmission vertical, where we are a build-own-operate company.
13:01And we take power transmission on a 35-year concession basis.
13:05This business is growing very fast.
13:07Like I said, India will award close to two to three lakh crores of transmission opportunity
13:13just in the next few years.
13:15And all of that somebody has to win and somebody has to bid.
13:19So, currently our company is executing about 15,000 crores of projects and we plan to increase
13:24that in the coming months.
13:27Second is our cables and wires and conductors business.
13:30In that, we are currently at about 6,000 crores revenue.
13:34And in the EHV segment, we are in the top three in the country.
13:37That is another product which we are selling to 40 countries around the world.
13:40And our desire is to go into higher-end EHV products as well as eventually into the highest
13:47end of the value chain, which could also include submarine and HVDC products.
13:51So that's number two.
13:52And number three is Serentica, which is our round-the-clock renewable energy company.
13:55And there we are giving round-the-clock solutions to large, hard-to-obey factories like aluminum,
14:01steel, cement data centers, and giving them a true renewable energy solution, which allows
14:07them to use this as their primary solution.
14:09So of the three, in terms of revenue breakup, if you can tell which one is your major player,
14:15where your focus is, and also if there is any plan of listing Starlight Power in the
14:19coming future?
14:21You know, the cables business is a revenue-oriented business.
14:25It's a large business.
14:27Our transmission company and our renewables company, they are an asset-oriented business.
14:32There, the revenue is not that big, but the EBITDAs are quite big.
14:36I would like to say all businesses are quite big.
14:38They are in the multi-billion dollars in value and in assets, all of the three businesses.
14:45And all have marquee investors.
14:47Our renewable business has a large U.S. private equity, KKR, as an investor.
14:52Our transmission business has the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Singapore, FGIC, as an investor.
14:57So to your question on IPO, you know, we have recently announced a demerger of our Starlight
15:03Power transmission into two entities.
15:05One is the manufacturing business for cables and conductors, and second is the transmission
15:09BOT business, which has this project.
15:12So potentially, we can consider a listing of our cables and conductor business, because
15:17there are many existing listed players.
15:19So the moment the demerger is done, we will appoint bankers, we'll go through the entire
15:22process, and then when there's the right advice and the right price and the right valuation,
15:26we can consider a listing.
15:28But at this point, we don't really require any third-party capital.
15:32We are virtually debt-free in that company, and we have many options of capital available
15:36to us.
15:37So we are looking to grow that business, maybe double it in the next two, three years' time.
15:41But any timeline which you have looked at as far as IPO for the cable business is concerned?
15:47We will consider in the next six to 18 months.
15:53One last question on as far as the outlook for the transmission sector.
15:57You already said $50 billion of transmission bids will be coming up for tenders in India
16:03alone.
16:04Plus, are you also looking at abroad international operations where you would like to bid for
16:10EPC projects?
16:11So in our transmission BOT business, which is different from EPC, there we have a large
16:16presence in Brazil.
16:17In Brazil, we are currently about a billion dollars of projects.
16:20About 70% is operating, and the rest are under construction.
16:24We have been a significant player in that market.
16:26We have not chosen to grow much in the last three, four years.
16:29These are projects we have won in the pre-2020 era.
16:33I think today we find that there is such tremendous growth in the Indian markets.
16:38Let me tell you that India is the largest greenfield transmission market in the world.
16:46And being a large player with a dominant presence in this market, it doesn't make too much sense
16:51for us to divert our attention into other areas.
16:53But I must tell you that every large country in the world will have to invest tens of billions
16:59of dollars, if not hundreds of billions of dollars in transmission.
17:02And I think the Indian way of doing transmission, which is called TVCB, Tariff Based Competitive
17:07Bidding, which is also somewhat prevalent in Latin America, is the most successful way.
17:12And India is leading the world in terms of the way it builds transmission, the way it
17:17engages the private sector, and the way it builds at speed.
17:20We are building projects in India in roughly three, three and a half years.
17:24The same projects will take 10 years to build in the United States.
17:28Is there any specific reason why you only stuck yourself to Brazil in international
17:33operations and never looked at, say, US?
17:36As you already said, it takes a lot of time in Europe and northeast of our east.
17:42So see, transmission as a business is actually, if you look at most of the world and look
17:47at history, transmission is a government owned monopolistic business.
17:53And very few countries have had the vision to open this business up for private sector.
17:58The two parts of the world that have been doing this for a long time, the longest is
18:01Latin America, which is Brazil, and Chile, Colombia, and second is India.
18:06And now new countries are following India, like Australia has recently done it.
18:10So for us, when we wanted to expand, it made imminent sense for us to choose the other
18:14market that has privatized transmission.
18:16And that's how we chose Brazil.
18:18Thank you very much for talking to NDTV Prophet.
18:21It was a pleasure talking to you and it was very comprehensive information that you shared
18:25on transmission sector.
18:27Thank you so much.
18:28My pleasure.