JSW Energy posted a mixed set of earnings, its revenues slipped, but margins expanded on lower fuel cost. Prashant Jain, Joint MD & CEO of JSW Energy, highlighted the reasons behind the dip in revenues, in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

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On revenues, Jain said, “Revenues were down because some of our captive customers chose to go on job work, which we explained in July 2020, and because of that year-on-year, you are seeing revenues down. They are supplying coal to convert power and that is what is making the difference in revenue.”

He further added, “Overall fixed cost remains and that is the reason you have seen the margins going up.”

On 2.5 GW of renewable capacity, Jain said, “We are having 2.5 GW capacity in renewable space under construction at this point of time, which will go on stream starting from the current financial year. In Q4 of this year, approximately 200 MW will get commissioned and then thereafter, every month, 150 MW will get commissioned.”

This entire 2.5GW capacity will be on stream and fully commissioned by June 2023, he added further.

Jain also said, “We are generating a cash profit of more than 2000 to 2200 crore every year so the entire equity is funded by the internal cash flow, not only 2.5GW but also up to 30 GW, we are having sufficient cash flow to take care of that growth.”

On growth, he said, we are now looking at higher growth because we have already taken certain steps in the last 18 months, we have created a big pipeline of renewable in time to come, which we will be bidding for and our target is that we will be touching close to 20 GW on a conservative basis by 2030.

He added. “We welcome Reliance and we will be very happy to partner with them and source solar panel and battery equipment from them. Their company is the benchmark in the country to supply such kind of products at a very low cost. And for a company like ours, it is imperative to produce power at the lowest cost possible. It is a competitive environment, we will have to see at what price they are going to launch, but if they launch the solar panels at competitive prices, which I believe they will, then the power tariff in the sector will go down too.”

On debt, Jain said, “We have been deleveraging our balance sheet quite significantly. Our debt-EBITDA is now less than 2 times as against the industry norms of more than 5 times. We have sufficient headroom in terms of sourcing the debt.”

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(Edited by : Dipika)