ICCK

Hero Future Energies, the renewable energy arm of the Munjal family-promoted Hero group, will invest upwards of $2 billion over the next 30 months to ramp up its generation capacity with focus on projects with energy storage to leverage a sharp fall in battery prices, company’s global CEO Srivatsan Iyer told TOI.
“Currently we have an operating capacity of 1.8 gigawatts (GW). We reached here in about 12 years. We will implement projects with a total capacity of 2.6 GW in the next two-and-a-half years as we feel the time has come for the company to spread its wings,” Iyer said.

A good part of the projects in the pipeline include battery energy storage systems and were won in auctions conducted by SECI (formerly Solar Energy Corporation of India), the state-run agency tasked with implementing the National Solar mission.“We want to focus on integrating multiple technologies such solar, wind and energy storage instead of pure-play solar or wind projects,” he said, adding the company is also planning green hydrogen foray.

The stress on energy storage system for peak power or round-the-clock supply is understandable since prices of a standard 20-feet lithium-ion battery pack have more than halved from $270 per kilowatt hour in 2022 to $130 at present. Iyer is hopeful of a further drop in prices, especially as new technologies such as sodium-ion and aluminium-air emerge. “The question is how much more,” he said.

The company is in a “comfortable” position to fund these projects and has no immediate plans to raise money, Iyer said, adding, “We can raise funding if and when we need.” KKR had, through its Asia-Pacific infrastructure fund invested $450 million in September 2022.

The company is also expanding its overseas footprint, with projects that are commissioned or are underway in Bangladesh, Vietnam, the UK and Ukraine.

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