In pursuit of quality power, Wipro mulls over captive plant

In pursuit of quality power, Wipro mulls over captive plant
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Even before Infosys chairman N R Narayana Murthy complained about Bangalore's infrastructure bottlenecks, Wipro chairman Azim Premji had done so, though he prefers to be mum these days.

While Narayana Murthy targeted roads for his recent criticism, Premji had always complained about the erratic power supply in Bangalore, especially when S M Krishna was the Chief Minister, and had hogged headlines.

It is not known if Premji continues to hold the same view even now on Bangalore's power supply situation, but his company is exploring the possibilities to setting up its own captive power plant to meet the electricity requirement at its offices.

The company officials did not indicate about the size of the plant, though experts say a 20 MW plant would be suffice to cater to its needs.

Wipro chief financial officer (CFO) Suresh Senapathy confirmed to this newspaper that plans to set up a captive power unit were being explored.

Asked if the captive plant option was being explored because they were not happy with the cost and quality of power supplied by the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom), he denied that was the driving factor.

Instead, captive plant idea was being evaluated to see if the electricity so obtained is superior in quality and cost competitive. “When everything one expects to be superior, why should power be an exception? We are evaluating if we can get superior power at least costs on our own,” he said.

BIG LOSS: A senior Bescom official recollected the problem the Wipro had with the power utility due to the frequent interruptions its Sarjapur Road facility often encountered.

The Bescom officials, however, see the possibility of companies like Wipro moving away from the grid as a big loss but reckon that captive power at times work out to be cheaper than the Bescom power.

The State-owned utilities have categories IT units under commercial category, and they pay energy charges upwards of Rs 5.90 per unit, and captive power would cost much less.

IT sector officials say that for IT companies it is reliability of the power supply matters most than its cost as they work against tight schedules