SJVN began as a single-project company in 1988 to build India’s largest hydropower station on the Satluj River, and has since evolved into a diversified power generator that now spans hydro, thermal, solar, wind, and pumped storage across India and Nepal. It is a Navratna public-sector enterprise under the Ministry of Power, a status that gives it greater autonomy to bid, invest, and partner, and its recurring approach is to anchor itself on long-term regulated or contracted tariffs while using its legacy hydro cash flows to fund newer, capital-intensive technologies. In effect, it builds power plants, sells every unit under a fixed-price agreement, and then reinvests in the next plant.
Business segments
Five engines at different stages - a regulated hydro cash cow, a newly fired thermal plant, a national-scale renewable platform, a cross-border hydro bet, and a pipeline of pumped-storage projects - each built with the cash flows of the one before.
1. Hydropower: the regulated foundation that pays for everything else
Three run-of-river stations on Himalayan rivers sell electricity under cost-plus tariffs set by the central regulator, earning a guaranteed return on every rupee of equity deployed.
- Paid for availability, not just generation - tariffs are split into Energy Charges (recovered on actual generation up to a design-energy cap) and Capacity Charges (recovered based on how reliably the plant is available, measured against a normative target of 87% for NJHPS and 83% for RHPS). Because the stations routinely beat those targets - NJHPS hit 104.54% plant availability in the first nine months of FY25 - they earn incentive income on top of the fixed charges.
- Cascade design doubles the water’s value - the 1,500 MW Nathpa Jhakri station and the 412 MW Rampur station sit one after the other on the same river, so the same flow generates power twice. A third operational station, the 60 MW Naitwar Mori project in Uttarakhand, was commissioned in December 2023.
- Silt is the enemy, and it fights it in-house - Himalayan rivers carry heavy silt loads that erode turbine components, so the company runs its own hard-coating facility at one power station and has R&D partnerships with IIT Madras on erosion-resistant coatings and IIT Roorkee on a hydrokinetic turbine.
- Four more under construction - 1,561.5 MW of hydro capacity is being built across the Luhri Stage-I, Dhaulasidh, and Sunni Dam projects in Himachal Pradesh, with the 69.5 MW Dhaulasidh project targeted for commissioning by March 2027. Power purchase agreements for all three Himachal projects were signed with Gujarat in June 2026.
2. Thermal power: the new baseload engine just switched on
A two-unit supercritical coal plant in Bihar supplies 85% of its output to the state under a long-term contract, adding round-the-clock capacity to a portfolio long dominated by seasonal hydro.
- Bihar is the anchor customer - 85% of the plant’s roughly 9,828 million units of annual generation is committed to the state under a long-term Power Purchase Agreement, giving the project a guaranteed offtake from day one.
- Supercritical means less coal per unit - the technology choice delivers higher efficiency and lower emissions than older subcritical plants, which matters because the anticipated project cost is ₹12,999.4 crore and fuel cost is the main operating variable.
- A third unit is being explored - a coal linkage for a potential 800 MW third unit has already been recommended by Coal India’s Standing Linkage Committee, and survey work is underway.
3. Solar and wind: the national-scale renewable buildout
A wholly owned subsidiary, SGEL, bids for solar and wind projects in competitive auctions, locks in 25-year tariffs, and then constructs them on an EPC basis - a capital-deployment engine scaling fast.
- Bikaner is the flagship - the 1,000 MW Bikaner solar project in Rajasthan, commissioned in December 2025, is India’s largest single-location EPC solar project under domestic-content rules, built on 5,000 acres of owned land at a cost of ₹5,492 crore. It uses roughly 24.22 lakh Indian-made solar modules and sells power to three states at ₹2.57 per unit.
- Floating solar marks a new capability - the 90 MW Omkareshwar project in Madhya Pradesh, commissioned in October 2024, is the company’s first floating solar plant, built on a reservoir at a cost of ₹646.20 crore.
- A legacy wind portfolio sits on the parent’s books - 47.6 MW in Maharashtra and 50 MW in Gujarat, both commissioned before SGEL was formed in 2022, plus a small 5.6 MW solar plant in Gujarat, together totaling 103.2 MW of older renewable assets.
- A green-hydrogen supply deal is taking shape - SGEL signed an MoU with AM Ammonia (India) Private Limited to explore setting up 4,500 MW of solar and wind capacity to supply about 11,500 million units annually to a green ammonia plant in Andhra Pradesh, with the parties agreeing to explore a dollar-denominated tariff.
4. International hydropower: a cross-border bet on Nepal’s rivers
Two run-of-river projects on the Arun River basin are being built under build-own-operate-transfer arrangements, with power evacuated to India over a transmission line the company co-owns.
- Arun-III is the beachhead - the 900 MW project is under construction through a wholly owned Nepalese subsidiary, SAPDC, on a BOOT basis.
- Lower Arun follows downstream - the 669 MW Lower Arun project received Indian cabinet approval in August 2024, with an investment of ₹5,792.36 crore and a levelized tariff of ₹4.99 per unit for its 2,900 million units of annual generation, to be commissioned within 60 months.
- The transmission line is part of the package - a 217 km, 400 kV double-circuit line is being built to carry power from both projects to Sitamarhi in Bihar, and SJVN holds a 41.94% stake in the joint venture that owns the Indian portion of that line.
5. Pumped storage: the storage pipeline for a renewable-heavy grid
The company is assembling a portfolio of pumped-storage projects across six states, using MoUs with state governments to lock in sites before building begins.
- Maharashtra is the biggest commitment - an MoU signed in September 2024 covers five projects totaling 8,100 MW, with an estimated investment of ₹48,000 crore.
- Bihar came first - SJVN was appointed nodal agency by the Ministry of Power in August 2022 for developing pumped storage in the state, and four sites totaling 2,570 MW were allotted for studies, with the 1,000 MW Hathidah Durgawati project designed to generate 2,308.65 million units of peak energy annually at a levelized tariff of ₹9.39 per kWh.
- Mizoram and Chhattisgarh add diversity - the 2,400 MW Darzo Lui project in Mizoram is an on-stream closed-loop design with eight 300 MW units and an estimated cost of ₹13,947.50 crore, while the 1,800 MW Kotpali project in Chhattisgarh is an off-stream closed-loop type with a proposed state joint venture.
- Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh round out the map - MoUs cover 5 GW of pumped storage and 2 GW of floating solar in Rajasthan, and 1,225 MW across three projects in Himachal Pradesh.
Group structure and partners
SJVN is a listed joint venture of the central and Himachal Pradesh governments, operating its non-hydro businesses through four wholly owned subsidiaries and entering new geographies and technologies through state-level joint ventures.
- SGEL is the renewable-energy subsidiary - incorporated in March 2022, it holds all solar and wind projects, with operational capacity of 390 MW as of early 2025 and a pipeline of over 6,600 MW under construction or pre-construction. The board approved in-principle dilution of SJVN’s stake in SGEL in August 2024, subject to government concurrence.
- STPL holds the thermal plant - the wholly owned subsidiary is developing the 1,320 MW Buxar project in Bihar.
- Two Nepal subsidiaries hold the Arun projects - SAPDC for the 900 MW Arun-III and SLAPDC (incorporated May 2023) for the 669 MW Lower Arun.