The Centre has placed orders for generation equipment adding up to 80,610 mw for power projects in the 11th Plan, surpassing a target of installing an additional 78,750 mw by the end of the Plan period in 2012.
At present, the national installed capacity is 1,49,300 mw. According to a power ministry official, of the orders placed for generating 80,610 mw, equipment adding up to 61,723 mw has been ordered for thermal, 15,507 mw for hydro and 3,380 mw for nuclear power generations.
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) has bagged order for equipment to generate 33,030 mw thermal power, although power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde during his last tenure had asked Bhel to compete for new projects via open global tenders. This had opened doors for Chinese companies, putting Bhel under pressure.
However, Bhel with a heavy order book failed to make deliveries on time.
For example, during the 10th Plan,the government set a target of adding 41,000 mw, Bhel could supply equipment, which added a generation of 17,766 mw only in the first four-and-a-half years of the 10th Plan period and finally supplied equipment for generating 20,931 mw. Shinde then opted for the global tender route. But his minister of state Jairam Ramesh was against the idea of Bhel facing competition from foreign vendors and, therefore, mooted the idea of ??standardising power projects,?? by which only technologies proven in Indian conditions would be used and the Bhel standard considered as a benchmark for power equipment used in Indian power projects.
Ramesh had said any foreign vendor willing to supply power equipment has to have a facility here.
Citing West Bengal?s Sagardighi and Durgapur thermal power projects, which purchased the main plant package from Chinese vendor Dong Fang Electric Corn, as an example, Ramesh said the imported plant package proved inefficient in operating with Indian coal, which has high ash content. However, Bhel facing charges of failing to make timely delivery, is ramping its capacity to 15,000 mw per annum by 2011 from 10,000 mw at present.
The official said though Bhel heads the pack in terms of the orders it has got, Chinese vendors are second with orders of plant packages to generate 16,419 mw. While Sanghai Electric Power Company Ltd has got orders for 7,320 mw, Dong Fang Electric Corporation got orders for 9,099 mw.
Other players in the fray are French company Alstom (3,528 mw), Power Machines of Russia (3,450 mw), Toshiba of Japan (3,010 mw) and the US-based joint venture company, Voith Siemens (2,670 mw).
Except Bhel, all the companies have bagged orders via the global tender route.
However, the government does not seem to have followed the principle of standardising power projects as orders have been given to various companies spread across the globe.
According to a power ministry official, each company has its own standard of technology. While Bhel has proved itself with 500 mw plant packages, Dong Fang has proved itself with 300 mw plant packages. But Dong Fang?s technology, despite being a great success in China, has proved to be inefficient in India.