JSW Energy created a lot of buzz when it won the race to buy KSK Mahanadi Power Company at the NCLT auction. The company owned by Sajjan Jindal went beyond the other suits, such as Adani Power, and beat them with an offer of ₹15,985 crore to the financial creditors.

Details of the KSK Mahanadi power plant

In Chhattisgarh, KSK Mahanadi operates a thermal power plant with a total capacity of 3,600 MW. At present, 1,800 MW of the total plant capacity is in operation. It is supported by long-term power purchase agreements encompassing 95 percent of the plant’s output. The other 1,800 MW is still under construction. One of the 600 MW units has already been 40 percent complete, and the necessary infrastructure has been set up for the remaining 1,200 MW. Coal is being supplied to the plant through roads and water, with the plant’s full capacity being attended to.

The journey to insolvency

The company was found insolvent in 2020 after it defaulted on payments, and the aggregate claims rose to ₹29,330 crore. Its finances were made hard to operate by the coal shortage. Lenders, the most notable being the SBI, sold loans to asset reconstruction firms, hoping to recover the cash they owed

Strengthening thermal generation capacity

The procurement of this power unit will make JSW Energy’s thermal generation platform larger; thus, the total locked-in thermal capacity will be enhanced to 7.5 GW. The company’s entire generation capacity under the PPA arrangements also went up with the new acquisition to 32.1 GW, approximately reaching 50 per cent of the 2030 target, where 20 GW was the goal.

Balancing expansion with sustainability goals

Even though JSW Energy is intensively engaged in enlarging the sphere of operation of conventional energy in the first place, it remains deeply committed to achieving its sustainability targets set to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.