TN Ropes in Private Firms to Wipe Out Power Deficit

To bridge the power deficit — now 4,000 MW, but growing quickly — in the State, the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Ltd (Tangedco) has decided to award a long term power purchase contract for 1208 MW to four companies at a levelised tariff of Rs 4.910/Kwh for a period of 15 years.

The minutes of the 38th Tangedco Board meeting held on June 28,2013 record a resolve to issue letters of intent for this particular long term power purchase contract to -
 DB Power
 Jindal Power
Ind Bharat Energy (Utkal) and
 Balco

Of a total of 12 bidders, these four companies are said to have submitted the lowest bids.

DB Power submitted the lowest levelised tariff of Rs 4.910/Kwh. Minutes from relevant files show that, after negotiation, DB Power offered an additional rebate of Rs. 0.02/unit for the first five years of power generation.

The other three bidders have agreed to match DB Power’s levelised tariff with the additional rebate.

The total available capacity for Tamil Nadu is a little over 10,500 MW, excluding wind power, but the peak demand is forecast to be some 15,700 MW for 2013-14.

Tangedco’s chairman and managing director adds that capacity addition from all ongoing projects commissioned during 2013-14 may only take care of the existing gap of 4,000 MW in supply. “We need to procure additional capacity for next three years viz, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17, which on a conservative estimate will be of the order of 3000 MW at the rate of 1000 MW per annum since no new significant capacity addition is expected during these years from 2014-15 to 2016-17”.