NTPC’s move to light up Games will trigger loadshedding in rest of India

Come October 3 and the country is likely to plunge into darkness as NTPC diverts the states’ share of power to New Delhi for the Common Wealth Games (CWG). Delhi will require 5,000 mw for the Games. Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project, Pragati Power Corporation and NTPC’s Dadri Thermal Power Station were to meet the requirement, however, except NTPC’s Dadri unit (2x490mw), none of the project have come up to power the Games.

While only a 490-mw unit of NTPC’s newly commissioned Dadri unit was supposed to supply power for the Games, the entire 980 mw generated will have to be diverted to Delhi during the CWG, said an NTPC official. According to the formula agreed upon, Uttar Pradesh was to get 5% of the 980 mw generated and 50% would have been distributed across the country. Delhi was to get 45% of Dadri’s generation. Even after drawing the entire generation of Dadri project CWG would fall short of 4,020 mw, to be managed from the states’ share of NTPC generation. This would violate the Gadgil power sharing formula, overdrawing from the grid, also virtually breaking grid discipline.

According to a Power Grid Corporation official, there are already instructions that the uniformity of frequency for supplying the common pool power to the north, east, west and north east India has to be broken during the CWG and power to north should flow at a higher frequency. In fact the eastern, western, northern and north eastern power zones’ power evacuation is done through a synchronised grid maintaining a uniform frequency level. So while power would flow at higher frequency to the northern part of the country, the grid connecting National Capital Region would overdraw from the northern grid to power the games. Hence, heavy load shedding is expected across the country, especially in the east, north, north east and west India during the Games.

However, the Central Electricity Authority is more eager to look at western India for drawing maximum power since it has the highest installed capacity of 51,454 mw of the country’s total 1,64,509 mw.

Being a clear case of breaking grid discipline in powering the CWG, it would be most interesting to watch the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission act to punish the Delhi government, which in turn would try to shift the blame on to the Centre, said the Power Grid Corporation official.

Source : The Financial Express

MMTC Seeks to Buy 1.3 Million Tons of Coal for India State-Run Utilities

MMTC Ltd., India’s largest state- owned trading company, is seeking bids for the supply of 1.3 million metric tons of coal to feed power plants run by NTPC Ltd. and other government utilities, an MMTC official said.

The fuel, which will be supplied from Indonesia over six months starting November, will have a calorific or heating value of 6,300 kilocalories, said the official, who declined to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media.

India’s thermal coal imports rose to 44 million tons in the year ended March 2010 from 38 million tons a year earlier, according to data from the nation’s coal ministry. The International Monetary Fund revised India’s 2010 economic growth forecast in July to 9.4 percent from its earlier prediction of 8.8 percent in April.

The coal will be used in power plants located in northern and central India, the official said.

MMTC has asked for 300,000 tons of coal for the Bhilai plant operated by a venture between NTPC, India’s largest power producer, and the Steel Authority of India Ltd., 360,000 tons for a venture between NTPC and the Haryana state utility in Jhajjar, 175,000 tons for the Haryana utility and 500,000 tons for the Uttar Pradesh state utility, the official said.

Tender documents for the two NTPC facilities will be opened on Sept. 23 and the rest on Sept. 28, the official said.

Source : Bloomberg