JSW Energy Expects Power Demand To Grow By Nearly 8% In Fourth Quarter

JSW Energy Ltd. expects power demand in the country to grow by nearly 8 percent in the fourth quarter of the current financial year, its Joint Managing Director and CEO Prashant Jain said.

“The power demand during the fourth quarter of last fiscal year grew by 7.5 percent and in the third quarter of the current financial year it grew by 6.8 percent,” Jain told BloombergQuint in an interaction. “We are seeing green shots in power demand and expect it to grow 7.5-8 percent in the fourth quarter.”

Watch the full conversation here:

Key highlights from the conversation:

On Acquisition Plans:

• Interested in buying some stressed power assets.
• Various power projects under the process of coming under NCLT
• We prefer bidding on stressed assets going through NCLT process.
• We are open to acquiring assets in both thermal and renewable segments.

On Coal Supply

• There is a shortage of coal supply in the power sector. However, it is not a concern for JSW Energy.
• We are witnessing a downward trajectory in thermal coal prices.

On Balance sheet

• Our current debt-to-equity ratio is less than one times
• Strong balance sheet have helped us have more appetite for growth.

On PPA Portfolios

• We have increased the long-term power purchase agreement portfolio in the last 18 months to 80.5 percent from 63 percent.
• About 19.5 percent is the untied capacity at present. Expect it to tie in 18-24 months.
• Looking to tie up for PPAs so that the cash flows are predictable.