Reliance Power has bagged the Krishnapatnam ultra mega power project (UMPP) - the third in the line of nine such 4,000 mw projects conceived by the government to fast-track power capacity addition - by bidding to supply power at Rs 2.33 per unit.This was much lower than the other two bids received, from Larsen &Toubro (which bid Rs 2.68 per unit) and Sterlite (which bid Rs 4.18 per unit), officials said.This would be the second ultra mega power project of 4,000 MW for the Anil Ambani group which is also constructing the the Sasan UMPP in Madhya Pradesh. While Krishnapatnam is based on imported coal, Sasan is a pithead coal project.The other imported coal based UMPP - located at Mundra in Gujarat - is being built by Tata Power.The unit price quoted by Reliance for the Rs 16,000 crore project located in Andhra Pradesh is only marginally higher than Tata's winning bid of Rs 2.26 per unit for the Mundra project last year, though international coal prices have gone up by over 60 per cent during the period. Industry officials were expecting the price bid for Krishnapatnam to be upwards to Rs 2.50."This augurs well for consumers who will get power at competitive rates," said power secretary Anil Razdan. This will also have a positive rub-off on future projects, he added.Officials said that the formal Letter of Intent for the Krishnapatnam project -- which will feed power to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka -- will be issued in the next few days.Though nine companies had qualified to bid for the project, only three put in a price bid. Large players like NTPC stayed away from bidding as they could not secure long term supplies of coal at competitive prices. Essar Power, D S Construction, Japan's Sumitomo Corp and CLP-GMR combine are some of the other bidders who opted out of the race.The UMPPs mandate the use of "supercritical" technology which is more efficient in the use of coal and also cuts down on emissions.
