The Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has directed 13 independent power producers (IPPs) to file a revised power purchase agreement (PPA) with Gridco by August 17, or it will cancel their projects.
The 13 IPPs who signed the MoU with the Orissa government to set up thermal power stations in the state had filed their PPAs with Gridco by September 2006. However, after the state government amended the thermal power policy in 2008, the IPPs have to sign revised PPAs.
The full bench of the OERC comprising chairman BK Dash, member KC Badu and member BK Mishra last Wednesday directed the IPPs to file the revised PPA with Gridco incorporating all the provisions of the new thermal power policy of the state government by August 17. The OERC has also made it clear that if the PPA was not filed for approval of the commission by the end of August 2009, it will not entertain petitions.
As per the state government Thermal Power Policy 2008, IPPs will offer 7% (in case it has coal linkage) and 5% (without coal linkage) of their generation to the state government at a rate fixed by the OERC based on the variable cost.
On the delay in filing the revised PPA, a senior company official of GMR Energy said there was a lot of confusion over preparing the PPA documents, but that it had been cleared up. Gridco director (commercial), Alekha Mallick, said the PPAs with the 13 IPPs will be signed by August 17 and these will be filed before the OERC for approval by the end of the month. He said that except Jindal, Bhusan and Monnet, all the 13 IPPs had agreed to sign the revised PPAs.
The major power companies which had signed up in the first batch are Tata Power, GMR Energy, Sterlite Energy, Bhusan Energy, Essar Power, Mahanadi Aban Power, Nava Bharat Power, Lanco Group, Jindal Photo Films, Visa Power, Monnet Ispat Energy , KVK Nilachal Power and CESC Ltd.
The IPPs ? eight in the second batch — are set to invest Rs 1,12,000 crore for creation of a total capacity of 27,035 mw.