NHPC's 'biggest' Subansiri hydropower project stalled on panel names

Construction for 2,000 Mw began more than 13 years earlier but has been stalled on ecological concerns; panel of experts to reassess also stuck at NGT

The fate of what could have been the country’s largest hydropower project is stuck on the composition of a committee.

In May, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) reserved its order on whether the committee for the 2,000 megawatt (Mw) project in Arunachal Pradesh, planned 15 years earlier, should continue.

Being put up by state-owned NHPC, the Subansiri Lower Hydropower Project has meanwhile seen its cost shoot up by Rs 132 billion from an initially envisaged Rs 62 billion. Consequently, the power rate has also multiplied, to Rs 6.36 a unit (kilowatts an hour) by April 2017, from Rs 1.53 a unit when the project got government approval in 2003.

NHPC began construction in January 2005 and says it has completed 55 per cent of the needed work, with Rs 102 billion already invested till June 2018.

“We are awaiting various types of clearances for 10 prospective projects totalling 7,795 Mw,” Balraj Joshi, chairman and managing director, told Business Standard.  

In October 2017, NGT had asked the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to constitute a committee of experts from the fields of seismology, geology, and hydrology within a month. This was to allay the concerns of protest groups which contended the project poses severe ecological threats and “could be decimated in the wake of an earthquake”.

The committee’s report and recommendations were to be given within three months. This was to form the basis for an expert appraisal committee that had to conduct a fourth-stage appraisal for the project under the 2006 environmental norms.

The three-member experts committee, formed after the October 2017 NGT order, met in December and January 2018. The NGT, however, deferred the next meeting of the committee, scheduled at Guwahati on February 5. The panel’s composition had been challenged by local groups, citing conflicts of interest.

On April 18, the NGT asked MoEF to “settle the matter amicably”. In May, it reserved its order on whether the committee as constituted could proceed or a new one had to be formed.

According to the revised April 2017 cost estimate, the loan funding needed is about Rs 136.5 billion, in line with the industry’s 70:30 debt to equity ratio. The equity portion is about Rs 58.5 billion.

NHPC is planning another project in the Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh, of 2,880 Mw capacity, potentially its largest. “As a country, we need to do more to promote hydropower in a big way, since hydro projects are also vehicles of development for remote areas. Besides, there are other merits of hydel projects, water security being one,” said Joshi.

According to him, hydropower is required for grid balancing, due to its capability of fast ramping-up. Considering the target for 175 gigawatt of renewable power addition by 2022, India would require compatible hydropower capacity for intermittency. “At a conservative level, we need an additional 15,000 Mw of hydropower in four to five years, and an equal magnitude of gas-based projects (for grid balancing). Conhydropowerat hydro power projects take six to seven years, we are already late in planning and executing such a support to the grid. The availability of gas being what it is, we have to make up the difference with more hydro projects.”