The country’s power major NTPC, which is coming out with a follow-on public offer

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on Wednesday, has secured approval for capacity addition of 315 mw through solar projects as part of its strategy to diversify generation mix.

The company, which is targeting a total capacity of about 75,000 mw by 2017 from the present 30,000 mw installed capacity, has proposed a capacity addition of 1,000 mw by 2017 through renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, small hydro and biomass.

“We have obtained our board’s approval for a capacity addition of 315 mw through solar,” said RC Shrivastav, director of human resources.

NTPC also intends to set up hydro power capacity of 9,000 mw and nuclear power capacity of 2,000 mw by 2017. The company seeks to achieve a more diversified fuel mix, with about 70 per cent from coal, 14 per cent from gas, 12 per cent from hydroelectric, three per cent from nuclear and one per cent from renewable energy sources by 2017.

It has signed a memoranda of understanding with the Karnataka government for developing wind projects and with Andaman & Nicobar administration for solar energy projects. Besides, it is also exploring wind and solar energy power projects in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

On the renewable side, it plans capacity addition of 650 mw from wind sources, 350 mw from small hydro (less than 25 mw) projects, while the rest is to come from solar, geo-thermal and biomass energy.

Shrivastav said NTPC would open the bulk tender for 11 supercritical units of 660 mw each on February 12. The company floated the bulk tender in October 2009 for procuring equipment for the same. These units include nine units for NTPC’s coal fired power plants and two units for Damodar Valley Corporation.

The bulk tendering procedure envisages a condition for the selected bidder to set up the manufacturing unit for main power plant equipment such as boilers and turbine generators in India to encourage indigenous manufacturing of super critical equipment.