The power ministry has asked the Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Power Ltd (RPL), whose IPO would be launched on January 15, to advance the commissioning of the two units of 800 MW each of 4,000 MW Sasan ultra mega power project (UMPP) in 11th plan period. The ministry also wants that the company should achieve financial closure as early as possible by October. The power secretary, Anil Razdan, asked the company to work out a detailed plan of advancing the commissioning of two units in the 11th plan and report it to the ministry.
Informed sources told FE that as per the commissioning schedule as provided in the power purchase agreement (PPA), the first unit is to be synchronized in 69 months (by May, 2013) and all units of the project are to come up in 104th month (by April, 2016). However, Reliance Power Ltd indicated that it would make all efforts to prepone commissioning of the project. ?Efforts will be made to commission one or two units before the completion of 11th Plan which is March 2012,? the company told the power ministry.
According to sources, the state-run PowerGrid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) is building the evacuation network. PGCIL would take 46 months to complete the transmission line. But the the schedule can only be firmed up only after the Reliance Power Ltd?s Sasan Power Ltd gives a firm commissioning schedule. In case, two units are being attempted during the course of 11th plan, the power ministry desired that firm indication is required to be provided by the Reliance Power Ltd without any further delay, otherwise evacuation planning would emerge as a constraint. The ministry has asked the company to give a firm schedule of commissioning in the next 3 to 4 weeks time.
The Reliance Power Ltd and the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) would examine the possibility of shifting the plant area within the proposed layout area so that work on the clear land could commence at the earliest. Subsequently, the CEA would notify the formation of a Joint Monitoring Committee for the project. Package dimensions would be identified early so that road movement for these packages are cleared in advance and SPL would attempt to finalize the boiler-turbine-generator BTG package in package in the first quarter of 2008 preferably by February.
