A2Z Maintenance & Engineering Services is planning to invest about Rs 3,000 crore to set up a 500-Mega watt (Mw) biomass power plant from municipal solid-waste, within two years.
The Guargaon based engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company in power distribution and maintenance sector, plans to fund the expansion, by tapping the capital markets with an initial public offer (IPO) of about Rs 350 crore this year, Amit Mittal, chairman and managing director told Business Standard.
“We require an equity contribution of about Rs 500-600 crore and will raise the funds through IPO and internal accruals,” he said. The company, in the three rounds of funding had attracted investment from private equity investors such as Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Beacon India Investors and India Equity Partners through Lexington Equity Holdings. The three entities have invested over Rs 130 crore in the company for a 40 percent stake.
The Rs 1,000 crore A2Z, which entered into biomass power generation two years ago, is among the top-ten independent biomass power generation companies in India with close to 60 Mw of capacity.
In Punjab, the company is setting up three co-generation power plants in collaboration with sugar mills on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model for a period of 15 years. A2Z will provide steam and power for operating the manufacturing process of the sugar mills during the crushing season.
A2Z, which bagged one of the largest municipal solid-waste management contract from Kanpur municipal corporation, plans to set up 10-15 Mw capacity power plants in various cities, depending on the availability of processed solid waste.
About 100 tonnes of solid waste is adequate to fuel one Mw of power plant, which will require an initial investment of Rs 6 crore. Indian cities generate close to 1,50,000 tonnes of solid waste every day. The biomass power plants can take off within 12 months, when compared to coal projects which require about 3-4 years for commissioning.
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The company will set up India’s first municipal solid-waste-to-power project in Kanpur, using RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel), which is derived from solid waste, said Mittal. The power plant is scheduled to be operational by March 2011 and will have the capacity to produce 15MW of power. The company plans to sell the power to the state as well as on merchant basis. The technology adopted by the company to produce RDF is organic and ensures that the fuel is homogeneous in nature.
A2Z Infrastructure, a subsidiary of A2Z Maintenance and Engineering Services, is implementing Asia’s largest integrated municipal solid-waste management project for Kanpur. It processes 1,500 tonnes of municipal solid-waste per day from a population of 31 lakhs in the city and also produces 150 tonnes of compost per day from municipal solid-waste under the brand name ‘Vasundhara’.