Adani Power is seeing the future in thermal energy like no other private peers. The company is looking to add nearly 24 GW of thermal capacity by FY32 — 30% of what the country is looking to add by then. The company said it had earmarked Rs 2 lakh crore for the capacity expansion — “the largest private sector capex in the space”. It targets having a thermal capacity of 41.87 GW by FY32 from 18.15 GW now .
Only state-owned NTPC is ahead of Adani in thermal capacity addition target, with a plan to add 30 GW by FY32.
Adani’s Dominance
Adani has managed to get the lion’s share of thermal power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed by state power discoms. Cumulative coal allocations to state discoms for fresh PPA bids under the SHAKTI Policy stood at 30 GW as of September 2025. PPAs awarded by state discoms with pre-indicated coal linkages was 17.7GW, of which 12.3 GW went to Adani Power, the company said in a investor presentation. The company has a locked-in capacity of 23.72 GW of 13 projects which it plans to do by FY32 and tied up 12.35 GW of PPAs for that.
Thermal power capacity is projected to rise from 247 GW in FY25 to 309 GW by FY32, requiring an additional 80 GW of coal-based plants and $91 billion in investments. “Coal remains the backbone of India’s baseload power, delivering stable supply amid rising demand and renewable variability,” it said in a presentation recently.
Strategic Rationale
While Tata Power has been saying it is looking at thermal projects despite its focus on renewable energy, JSW Energy is adding thermal projects selectively. Tata has not set any targets for thermal capacity addition. Currently Tata Power has a thermal capacity of 8.9 GW. JSW Energy, which has an installed thermal capacity of 5.6 GW, is looking at 9 GW by 2030.
Adani is putting its money where its mouth is. “Looking at the scale of the opportunity (100 GW of new thermal capacity needed in the country by 2035), we have also revised our target to 41.87 GW capacity by FY32 from 18.15 GW operational capacity currently, thereby undertaking India’s largest private sector capex in this space worth approximately Rs 2 lakh crore,” an Adani Power spokesperson said . The nearly 24 GW of additional planned capacity is already locked-in, with land in possession and equipment orders placed, the spokesperson said.
With power demand rising, thermal power with its inherent ability to provide large-scale, reliable, round-the-clock power will continue to remain the backbone of the country’s energy security, providing critical base-load and grid balancing support, the spokesperson said.
Analysts tracking the firm said Adani is among the first ones to see the potential of thermal. “They were the first ones to sense that renewables are not being scaled up in a big way in the country and whatever is coming up not able to meet the demand substantially,” said an analyst who did not want to be quoted. Power sector was booming and they felt new tenders are coming up and hence they got into thermal in a big way, he said.
“Thermal is difficult in execution. Unless you have bandwidth and resources like Adani or Tata, you cannot do it. In the past, many players got into it and incurred huge losses,” he said.
Another analyst said focus on traditional energy sources is not peculiar to India and “many countries are going back to traditional fuels like Japan and Europe going back to nuclear and US going back to oil and gas”, he said.
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