Power projects remain on paper and not operational

New Delhi: A sizeable chunk of power generation capacity continues to remain on paper, several months into units being declared commissioned.

Of the 6,620 MW of thermal capacity publicly declared commissioned last fiscal, a total of 3,810 MW of capacity (around 58 per cent) is still to reach commercial operations till now.

According to current norms, a power project is considered commissioned when it is simply synchronised on oil, well before four key stages required before actual generation commences — synchronisation on coal, full load operation; trial operation and commercial operation declaration (COD) — are completed.

Underscoring the need to change the definition of commissioning, the Minister of State for Power, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said the policy of declaring a unit commissioned based purely on ‘synchronisation on oil’ has been in vogue for over two decades just so that targets are shown to have been met.

This, he said, reflected poorly on the entire supply chain — on BHEL, on other main plant suppliers, on suppliers of key balance of plant equipment such as coal and ash handling plants, on civil works contractors and also on promoters themselves.

He said that henceforth, a thermal power project would be deemed to have been commissioned only when COD has been reached.

NTPC unit:

Meanwhile, the first 500 MW unit of NTPC’s super thermal power project at Sipat in Bilaspur district of Chattisgarh went on full load on Friday, almost a full-year after it was declared commissioned.

It will go fully commercial in about three weeks’ time.

The second 500 MW unit is expected to go fully commercial by October. Both the 500-MW units use boilers and turbines manufactured by BHEL.

Other units:

The two 500 MW units form Stage-II of the project, while three supercritical 660 MW units form Stage-I.

The boilers for these 660 MW units are being supplied by the South Korean company Doosan and the turbines by the Russian firm Power Machines.