Power capacity addition to improve by 40 percent this fiscal

Vinod Kumar Gupta
Monday, 30 August 2010
CHANDIGARH: Power capacity addition in this financial year is likely to improve by about 40 percent over last year’s addition of 9585 MW.

According to official data Government has planned 21411 MW of capacity in the current financial year. This includes 18755 MW of thermal power, 1436 MW of hydro power and 1220 MW of nuclear power. Government may not achieve the projected capacity addition but it is going to be an all time high capacity addition between 13000 to 14000 MW.

The major thermal projects which BHEL has already been commissioned are Kakatiya 500 MW, Surat 250 MW and Chabra 250 MW. On private sector side Reliance's Rosa 300 MW has been commissioned.

Second unit of Jhajjar thermal 600 MW is likely to be commissioned next month. The trial run of first unit of 600 MW Jhajjar before commercial operation is still continuing.
According to CEA there are 36 thermal projects of 18755.2 MW which are scheduled to be commissioned in this financial year.

These include thermal projects of 962 MW capacity that missed their commissioning targets last year. BHEL, is executing EPC contracts for 11,302 MW of thermal plants whereas Chinese contractors are responsible for adding 6,193 MW.

Last year overall capacity addition achievement during 2009-10 was 9,585 MW against a target of 14,507 MW which was the best figure so for. With same success ration of 66 percent this year thermal capacity addition is likely to be over 12000 MW.
This year hydro projects of 1436 MW capacity are expected to be synchronized but so for only one project of 50 MW capacity has been synchronized On nuclear front the projects of 1220 MW capacity has been planned for the financial year.

As per CEA report capacity of 3,368 MW had been achieved, of which 1,333 MW was accounted for by the private sector. As per revised projections of capacity addition by CEA in 11th five year plan maximum possible addition of 62373.9 MW is possible.

This includes 21222MW from projects in central sector, 21355.4MW in state sector and 19796.5 MW in private sector. The earlier projections for the five year plan were 78700 MW.

The private sector's role in capacity addition in the five year plan is almost one third and this is likely to improve with more states going for private sector projects.

Punjab has framed new generation policy of inviting private sector without competitive bidding is a big boost for private sector. A number of developers have shown interest to build new projects.