India Power Corporation Ltd (IPCL), promoted by the Kanoria Foundation, announced on Thursday that it has formed joint venture with Germany-based Uniper for offering a broad range of services for helping power plants improve their efficiency.
Both companies will have equal equity stake in the newly formed joint venture company India Uniper Power Services.
“Wherever there are operating assets operating at low plant load factors (PLF), we see an opportunity to help them improve their PLFs. Secondly, there are lots of first-time power plant operators, we will be in a position to help them improve their operational efficiencies,” said Hemant Kanoria, Chairman, IPCL, and also Chairman and Managing Director of SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd.
Kanoria made it clear that India Uniper Power Services will not go in for acquisition of assets or setting up any power plants. “This joint venture will be offering only specialised services. We already acquire power plants and set up new plants through IPCL, while SREI Infrastructure Finance is engaged in the activity of financing such plants,” he said.
Klaus Schafer, Chief Executive Officer, Uniper, said that the aim of the joint venture is to offer intellectual capital rather than financial capital. “It is true that for some of the really old power plants it does not make sense for upgrades, but for plants which are 25 years old, upgrades can help bring about efficiencies which ultimately also help meet environment concerns,” he said. Both the joint venture partners said that they are entering into a new business segment in India. While they did not reveal the potential business size, Kanoria said that India Uniper Power Services aims to offer scalable solutions.