Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) for creating a joint venture company to set up 2 X 800 MW ‘supercritical power projects’ in Tuticorin. A K Puri, chairman, BHEL and Hans Raj Verma, chairman, TNEB, signed the MoU in the presence of Union heavy industries minister Santosh Mohan Dev and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.
Addressing a press conference, Dev said that the project would come up in a 500-acre site at Udangudi in Tuticorin district at a cost of Rs 8,500 crore. TNEB and BHEL would have 26% equity in the proposed joint venture and rest would be contributed by financial institutions, he added.
The detailed project report for the venture would be ready in three months and work on the project would commence shortly after that, he said adding BHEL would be setting up eight such projects in five states and negotiations with the state governments are in place. However, he declined to divulge further details.
Supercritical technology was a modern technic adopted by the developed world, under which power would be produced at a very high temperature. This would hike the plant load factor and reduce the generation cost compared to conventional thermal power plants, he said further. The boilers and their auxillaries for the Udangudi project would be supplied by BHEL units at Tiruchirapalli and Ranipet in Tamil Nadu. He said all the power equipment manufacturing plants of BHEL were being modernised to enhance their production capacity.
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. The first phase of expansion would be completed before the end of the current fiscal and the second phase by 2009, he added.