Bihar blames the Centre for power woes

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today criticized the Centre for allegedly not making available sufficient electricity from central pool to cater to the requirements of Bihar.

"Though we have strengthened the distribution and transmission network for electricity, the Centre is not cooperating with us by not making available sufficient electricity," Kumar said while addressing a conference on 'Powering Bihar: Attracting Investments for Development of the Power Sector in Bihar'.

He said that after coming to power, the NDA government worked hard and took several steps to improve the network of distribution and transmission of electricity in the state. "But it is unfortunate that we have dearth of electricity," he said.

The state government had developed the capacity of distribution of power to 3,338 MW by now and efforts were underway to further increase the distribution capacity to 4,640 MW by 2012, the Chief Minister said.

Accusing the Centre of supplying electricity to Bihar from 'problem-facing' power generation centres, Kumar said, "The Centre has such an attitude that it wants the people of Bihar to suffer."

He claimed that when the NDA came to power in Bihar, the production of electricity in the state was "zero MW" in 2005.

"But the state government has now joint venture with NTPC and work is in progress for making the power plants at Kanti in Muzaffarpur district and Navinagar in Aurangabad district operational at the earliest possible", he said.

Chief Minister said the state government was also exploring other alternatives, including bio mass, nuclear energy, hydel energy and non-conventional energy for meeting the requirements of the state.

He said the state government had submitted a proposal to the Centre for setting up a nuclear energy plant in Nawada but nothing had come off so far.

Lashing out at the Centre for electrification of revenue villages under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Yojana, Kumar said the scheme for supplying 16 and 25 KV AMP transformers under the Yojana had failed. "The scheme for providing electricity to 10 BPL households in every village is highly impractical", he said.

Stating that the problem relating to electricity would not be solved by supplying 63 kva and 100 kva transformers, Kumar said the state government had sent several letters to Prime Minister, Union Power Minister and the Planning Commission of India in this connection.

He said the Centre would have to make drastic change in Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Programme in the 12th plan period "otherwise it will be a treachery to people".

Chief Minister informed that the state government had decided to change 72000 KM electricity wire which was in bad shape in next three to four years. "We have also decided to reconstitute the Bihar State Electricity Board", he said.

Criticising the ethanol policy of the Centre, Kumar alleged that fate of proposals for sugarcane-based projects for manufacturing 2000 mw electricity in Bihar were hanging in balance following alleged faulty policy of the Centre.

"We expect production of 1400 mw electricity, if the Centre lifts the restrictions on production of ethanol in Bihar", he said.

Tata Power's Mundra Plant rearing to go - Tranmission lines by 15th Sept

Power Grid Corp is racing to build transmission lines for Tata Power’s ultra mega power plant in Mundra, whose first unit is ready to start generation three months ahead of the planned start-up date in the middle of September. Power Grid normally builds transmission lines on schedule and often has to wait impatiently for the power plant to start generating electricity.

For Tata Power also, it will set up the promised infrastructure on schedule, officials said. “It is one of those happy unusual circumstances, when a generation unit comes ahead of schedule,” Power Secretary Uma Shankar said. He said Power Grid would build the lines by the target date. He said the ministry had taken up a special initiative to work out temporary arrangements to transmit the electricity as soon as possible.

Work on transmission lines was earlier held up because the company was waiting for forest clearances, but now it has secured all approvals to build the lines, officials said. Tata Power’s 4,000 mw ultra mega power project at Mundra is amongst the first of the set that have been planned as part of India large power capacity addition programme. This first unit that is ready to begin its test runs will generate 830 mw at one go, fired by imported coal from Indonesia.

Explaining the “unusual” instance of a generation unit coming ahead of transmission lines, Power grid chairman and managing director SC Chaturvedi said that the trend so far has always been the other way around. As of now, there are instances of at least four big power projects, Barh (Bihar), Mejia (West Bengal), Simhandri and Nuclear Power Corporation’s Kodakullam where transmission lines are up and ready but the generation plant is still months away. “We do not have any unit that is waiting for want of a transmission line,” he said.

In the case of Tata Power’s Mundra project, Powergrid had offered a plan earlier to transmit some part of the power (up to 250 mw) to the consumer states. “But Tata Power insisted on having a line that could take the entire load and had signed on a target date of September 15,” he said while assuring that the company will meet the commitment.

The country’s foray into these large capacity power plants, known as super-critical in industry parlance, marks the beginning of a new era which is expected to improve efficiency of power plants while brining in reduced tariffs with of economies of scale coming to play. The government’s ultra mega power project programme, currently being implemented, aims to create at least seven giant power stations. India is struggling to create generation and transmission capacity needed to keep pace with economic growth.

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BHEL delays NBFC plan, board seeks changes

Cash-rich power equipment giant BHEL’s plan to float a non-banking finance company has been delayed as the board of the PSU has asked consultancy firm Crisil to incorporate some changes before finalising the contours of the NBFC proposal.

“Our consultant — Crisil — has worked out details and submitted the report to the board, which has asked them to do some changes, the revised report would be considered by the board again in next 1-2 months,” BHEL Chairman and Managing Director BP Rao said in an interview. Certain working changes were sought by the board,” he said, but did not specify what changes the board has asked for.

BHEL, which is sitting on a cash surplus of Rs 9,000 crore, plans to foray into NBFC space to fund power projects. Creation of the NBFC would help BHEL to better utilise its cash surplus, especially in terms of financing infrastructure projects. BHEL’s operations are organised under three business verticals — power, industry and overseas business. The industry segment includes transmission, transportation and renewable energy.

It has installed equipment with a total generation capacity of over 1,00,000 Mw for utilities and captive and industrial users, according to the company website.

Asked whether the financing arm would compete with the likes of Power Finance Corp and Rural Electrification Corp, Rao said, “No, they [PFC, REC] have a big magnitude… Our NBFC would be small.”

BHEL, which has an order book position of Rs 1.64 lakh crore, is present in over 70 countries, spanning six continents, and has set a target of generating Rs 45,000 crore of revenue by the end of the current XI Five-Year Plan (2007-12). NBFC operations would help BHEL in facilitating financial closure for power projects without much delay and in return, would get orders for equipment.

In what can be called as a quantum leap for Gujarat's renewable energy sector, the wind power generation capacities have seen a sharp increase since 2006 from 338 Megawatt (Mw) to 2175.5 Mw in 2011. The share of Gujarat in the country's total wind power generation capacities has jumped from mere 6.32 per cent in 2006 to a respectable 15.36 per cent in 2011.
With 2,175 Mw, the state holds 15.36 per cent of India's total wind power generation capacity. 


"Gujarat has enormous potential for wind power generation. The average velocity of wind in the state is just less than seven meters per second, which is very much suitable for wind power generation. Besides this, the state has the longest coast-line in the country and a desert in Kutch. This makes land availability for the wind power projects," said Anil Kane, president, World Wind Energy Association (WWEA).While Gujarat has shown a growth of over 545 per cent in wind power capacities in past six years, the country's wind power generation capacities have grown by 165 per cent from 5341 Mw in 2006 to 14,158 Mw by March 2011.

According to industry experts, wind velocity in the range of 6-7 meters per second is best suitable for the wind power generation. Winds blowing from Arabian sea and winds in desert area of Kutch are believed to be favouring wind energy sector.

NTPC to get coal from Andhra mines - Singareni Colleries

State-run National Thermal Power Company (NTPC), which is looking for coal to produce power after the Coal Ministry cancelled five coal blocks allotted to it, is all set to buy 5 million tonnes of coal from Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL), by shelling out Rs 814 extra per tonne. According to NTPC, it entered into an agreement with SCCL, an Andhra Pradesh government-owned coal mining company, for coal supply in addition to normal supply.

“Under the MoU, SCCL would supply 5 million tonnes of additional coal to NTPC stations for a period of one year from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, in addition to supply of 10.2 million tonnes of coal per annum under the existing long term fuel supply agreement with the thermal power major,” a company statement said.

“We will charge Rs 814 extra per tonne from NTPC on the long term contract price of Rs 600-1900 per tonne,” a senior official of SCCL said. The Ministry of Coal recently cancelled five coal blocks – Chhati Bariatu, Kerandari, Chhati, Bariatu (South), and Brahmini in various parts of Jharkhand as there was no progress in developing the coal fields which were allotted for captive purpose. The ministry has also issued warning letters to NTPC for not showing any progress in two coal mines – Talaipalli coal block (Chhattisgarh), and Pakri Barwadih, (Jharkhand). 

According to a NTPC official, the power ministry is lobbying with coal ministry to revoke the de-allocation letters issued to the PSU power major. When contacted, NTPC spokesperson said with the current supplies from SCCL they are able to achieve 80-84 per cent Pay Load Factor (PLF). “If we want to achieve higher levels we need extra reserves of coal. This [MoU] is for short term supplies and is for one year,” the spokesperson said.

IPOs in Indian Power Sector : Abhijeet Power files papers

Abhijeet Power has filed initial papers to raise up to US $307.6 million via initial public offering, the company said in a newspaper advertisement on Friday.

The Nagpur-based firm joins rivals Avantha Power, Ind-Barath, Sterlite Energy and Jindal Power that together plan to mop up about US $3.5 billion in 2011 from the Indian primary market where energy firms raised US $608 million in 2010 through primary share offers, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

The company is considering a pre-IPO placement of up to 333.33 million shares to raise about Rs 500 crore ($111.86 million), it said.

Earlier in January, Abhijeet Power’s Chief Financial Officer Rajesh Tulsiani had told Reuters, the IPO was likely to be in the range of Rs 1,200-1,500 crore Enam Securities, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, IDFC Capital, UBS, Axis Bank and SBI Capital Markets are the managers to the issue.