The Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) on Friday granted permission to the Prayagraj Power Generation Company (PPGCL) to invite global competitive bids to build, own, operate and maintain the Prayagraj Thermal Power project based on supercritical technology.
PPGCL,which is a special purpose vehicle created for the development of the 3×660-mw Prayagraj Thermal Power project in Bara, Allahabad, also got nod to establish a transmission system of two single circuit transmission lines of 765Kv from Bara to Mainpuri in Allahabad district.
This is probably the first time in the country that any state government has mooted the idea of having a single developer to set up both the generating and transmission facility of a powerhouse.
Though the regulatory commission expressed its reservations regarding the new experiment, it did give its approval to the project ?as a special case?.
?Ideally, there should have been two separate bids for the generating and transmission facilities, but as the state government was of the view that a compact bid should be invited for the project as that would save the risk of time mismatch between getting the generating and transmission facilities, we gave our approval as a special case,? said UPERC chairman Vijoy Kumar.
Speaking to FE, a senior official of the energy department said, ?As an additional Rs 1600 crore capital expenditure is envisaged in building the transmission infrastructure, we do not want to take the risk of having the generating unit complete and yet not have the transmission facility to evacuate the power generated. With the same company developing both the generating and transmission infrastructure, this risk would be minimised to a large extent.?
It may be mentioned that the Uttar Pradesh government had recently changed its energy policy so as to make it ?conducive to investment by private power developers?.