Punjab Newsline
AIPEF demands revoking of award for Yamuna Nagar Thermal Plant
VINOD KUMAR GUPTA
Wednesday, 03 February 2010
CHANDIGARH: All India power Engineers Federation(AIPEF) has demanded that award of gold shield for early completion of thermal project to Yamuna Nagar Thermal Plant needs to be revoked as the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission(HERC) has passed adverse remarks and strictures against the delay in the commercial operation of the plant.

Shaliender Dubey Secretary General AIPEF in a letter to Sushil Kumar Shinde Union Power Minister has said that the first unit of thermal plant was synchronized on oil firing on November 01 2007 but the declaration of Commercial Operation Date of both units was delayed and subject to dispute between HPGCL and EPC contractor Reliance. A copy of news item on the subject from "Punjab Newsline "of February 1
has been enclosed with letter.

It may be mentioned that Ministry of Power conferred the National Awards for meritorious performance in power sector for 2008-09 on January 29. The Gold Shield for early completion of thermal power project was awarded to Yamuna Nagar Thermal Plant of Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited. The EPC contract for this project of 2X300 MW was given to M/s Reliance which sourced the equipment from China.

HERC issued the tariff order for HPGCL stations for 2009-10 on May 18 2009 wherein the commission passed adverse remarks and strictures against the delay in the COD of the plant. The tariff order confirms that unit 1&2 as reported by HPGCL, are yet to be finally taken over from the EPC contractor pending performance Guarantee test. The Commission has taken seriously note of the fact that earlier date of commercial operation was reported as 1/4/2008 and 15/5/2008 respectively and prior to that the reported dates were 1/12/2007 and 28/2/2008. Now, in response to the objection raised by the intervener HPGCL has stated that the milestones are not COD, but provisional take over and final takeover.

“The Commission is concerned about the poor performance and frequent breakdowns of 2X300 MW DCRTPS, Yamunanagar units which were Commissioned in FY 2007-2008. These units during financial year FY 2008-09 have achieved very low PLFs of 68.66% and 69.53% respectively. The auxiliary power consumption at 9.34% and 9.32% is on the higher side and specific oil consumption at 6.81 and 5.74 ml/kWh respectively is alarmingly high.

From the tariff order of HERC it is seen that the CODs reported by HPGCL for unit 1were 1-12-2007, then shifted to 1-4-2008 and again shifted to 14-4-2008. For unit 2 the COD dates given by HPGCL were 28-2-2008, then 15-5-2008 and finally 24-6-2008. This establishes that the declaration of commercial operation was repeatedly shifted which indicates in completions and controversy.

Since these adverse comments were recorded by the statutory body HERC in its tariff order of 18-5-2009, there was no justification to give the gold shield for early completion to this plant for 2008-09 as the units were not even taken over by HPGCL as on 18-5-2009.