Mahagenco to float higher capacity plant bids

The state owned power generation utility Mahagenco's decision to shift to 800 Mw super critical plants instead of smaller 250 or 500 Mw plants will throw open business opportunities worth over Rs 11,500 crore to international power generation equipment suppliers like ABB, Simens, Areva, Alsthom among others.

These international player simply can't match prices offered by public sector giant Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL) in smaller capacity thermal power generation plants.

However, Maharashtra government is not happy with Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd?s (BHEL) performance on meeting supply deadlines.

Mahgenco's projects of 2,000 Mw have been delayed by six to nine months. A situation which the state government can ill-afford as state is facing huge power shortage of more than 5,000 Mw. And various parts of state are in darkness for period between four and half hours to 14 hours.

This has forced Mahagenco to consider invoking a penalty clause in the supply agreement, said sources in the state government's energy ministry.

For the same reason we are considering to go for super critical plants where bids of international power generation equipments (boiler, turbine, generator-BTG) can become competitive with BHEL, which will help us to speed up our capacity addition programme, said sources from the state energy ministry.

As international players can't match BHEL's prices in smaller plants, because of which BHEL;s order book is full for the next two to two and half years, and this is resulting in delays in delivery by BHEL.

Presently only the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Tata Power Company (TPC) are envisaging plans to go for super critical technology, sources pointed out.

The Mahagenco has plans of capacity addition of around 4,300 Mw. The current bench mark cost for thermal power plant varies between Rs 4.5 crore to Rs 4.7 crore per Mw and BTG component of the cost is around 60 per cent of the total cost of commissioning the thermal power plant.

That means international players have the opportunity to bag the business of over Rs 11,500 crore from Mahagenco, sources elaborated.

Besides, it makes bids of international players competitive against BHEL, efforts required to build 500 Mw plant and 800 Mw are the same, it requires the same amount of land and it uses fuel more efficiently and environment-friendly manner, sources added.