Indian power giant beats profit estimate

NEW DELHI: NTPC Ltd’s first-quarter net income has risen 12% from a year earlier, after a scorching summer boosted India’s electricity consumption to a record during the period.

India’s biggest power producer reported net income of 53.4 billion rupees (US$553mil) for the quarter through June. The profit beat 48 billion rupees average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Increasingly hot summers have become a key driver of electricity demand in the South Asian nation, lifting earnings for generators such as NTPC and fuel supplier Coal India Ltd.

That’s also helped accelerate investments in power infrastructure, from generation capacity to transmission networks.

The New Delhi-based state-run utility added 196MW of capacity during the quarter, although the net year-on-year increase was smaller as the company permanently shut its 440MW coal power plant in September.

Electricity sales volume and revenue expanded about 3% each.

A surge in power demand, particularly after sunset when solar generation goes off the grid, pushed capacity use at India’s coal-fired plants up by nearly three percentage points from a year earlier, according to power ministry data.

NTPC’s coal fleet utilisation rose to 76.7% in the June quarter, from 75.2% a year earlier.

Coal and natural gas account for more than 80% of NTPC’s capacity, including joint ventures, according to its website.

The company is expanding generation from renewables and also plans to add nuclear plants to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. — Bloomberg