Business Line
Private sector charge adds record 9,585 MW to grid

Timely commissioning of key projects triggered the boost.
Anil Sasi

New Delhi, April 7

A spirited performance by the private sector has contributed to a record power capacity addition in 2009-10.

A total of 9,585 MW of capacity was added during the last fiscal, of which 4,287 MW or 45 per cent was by private developers. The Central and State sector utilities cumulatively added 5,298 MW during the period. To put it in perspective, the capacity added during the year is roughly equivalent to the peak demand met in Gujarat last fiscal and about double that of Delhi.

As a percentage of the total installed generation capacity (about 1,57,000 MW), the capacity added during the entire year comes to about 6 per cent. The timely commissioning of some key private projects — two units of Adani Power's Mundra project (660 MW) and Torrent Power's Sugen project (765 MW) in Gujarat, CESC's 250 MW Budge-Budge-III in West Bengal, and JSW Energy's Toranagallu extension project in Karnataka (600 MW) — were responsible for the big jump in the private sector's contribution to overall capacity addition.

Also, the spill-over effect of some projects from the last fiscal, including units of the Gautami and the Konaseema projects (both in Andhra Pradesh) and units of Lanco's Amarkantak project in Chhattisgarh, boosted the private sector's contribution.

The private sector's contribution to capacity addition has shown a progressively improving trend during the first three years of the current Plan period, despite difficulties in getting site clearances, problems in open access, lower preference in allocation of fuel linkages, and impediments such as the need to furnish bank guarantees for getting transmission corridors built.

According to Government data, of the 9,263 MW commissioned in 2007-08, the private sector accounted for only about 8 per cent. This improved to 25 per cent in 2008-09 (883 MW out of the 3,454 MW commissioned that year) and now to 45 per cent during 2009-10.

Key Central generation utilities and State sector firms are reporting slippages in the achievement of targets. NTPC Ltd, which has been key to the capacity addition programme over the years, has been slow in the initial years of the current Plan and managed to commission just 1,000 MW in 2008-09 against a target of 2,800 MW.

During 2009-10, it commissioned just 990 MW. The State sector projects are also way behind the targets. Cumulatively, as against the overall target of 14,507 MW set for 2009-10, the actual achievement at 9,585 MW was about 66 per cent.

The achievement during 2008-09 was 31 per cent (3,454 MW against a target of 11,061 MW) and 57 per cent in 2007-08 (9,263 MW against a target of 16,335 MW).