Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) on Friday signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) for creating a joint venture company to set up a 1,600mw supercritical power project in Tuticorin.
BHEl chairman A K Puri and TNEB chief Hans Raj Verma signed the MoU in the presence of heavy industries minister Santosh Mohan Dev and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi.
The project will come up on 500 acres at Udangudi in Tuticorin district at a cost of Rs 8,500 crore. TNEB and Bhel will have 26% equity in the proposed joint venture while the rest will be contributed by financial institutions. The project will have two units of 800mw each.
The detailed project report for the venture would be ready in three months, Dev said, adding the work on the project would commence shortly after that. Bhel will set up eight such projects in five states and negotiations with the state governments are in place. However, the minister declined to divulge further details.
The plants, now manufacturing equiqment to generate 6,000-mw of electricity, would produce equipment for 10,000 mw before the end of the current fiscal and 20,000 mw by 2011.
Dev said Bhel plant at Tiruchirapalli would be expanded at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore in two phases.
Supercritical technology is a modern technic adopted by the developed world under which power is produced at a very high temperature.
This will hike the plant load factor and reduce the generation cost compared to conventional thermal power plants. The boilers and their auxillaries for the Udangudi project would be supplied by Bhel units at Tiruchirapalli and Ranipet in Tamil Nadu, Dev said. He added all the power equipment-manufacturing plants of Bhel were being modernised to enhance their production capacity.
The first phase of expansion would be completed before the end of the current fiscal and the second phase by 2009, he added.