Delhi to approach Petroleum Min for gas supply to Bawana plant

Delhi government today said it would soon approach the Union Petroleum Ministry for facilitating gas supply to the 1,500-MW Bawana power plant built at a cost of around Rs 4,500 crore.
The plant, which was made ready in 2012, is currently generating around 350 MW of power daily against its optimum capacity due to shortage of gas supply.
Chief Secretary S K Srivastava, during a visit to the plant at North West Delhi, said the city government would soon approach the Petroleum Ministry to demand gas supply to the plant.
Bawana is the largest gas-based power plant in Northern India. It consists of a total of six units -- four gas units and two steam turbines.

Officials said the plant required 5.8 MMSCMD (million metric standard cubic metres per day) of gas, whereas only 1.564 MMSCMD of non-APM (Administered Price Mechanism) gas and 0.836 MMSCMD of RIL KG basin gas was allocated to it.
They said supply from RIL KG basin had stopped completely since March 2013.

Officials said commissioning of the plant would result in drop of power tariff in the city as the cost of power procurement would come down.
The then Sheila Dikshit government in 2011 had also sought intervention of the Prime Minister's Office in getting natural gas for the Bawana plant following refusal of Reliance Industries Ltd to supply the fuel.

The Centre had allocated 0.93 MMSCMD gas from Reliance's Andhra offshore KG-D6 fields for Bawana for 2009-10 and 2010-11, but as the plant missed scheduled deadline, the Delhi government could not sign the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement with RIL.
In April 2011, after synchronisation of two gas-fired turbines of 250 MW at the plant, the Delhi government had approached RIL to sign the contract. But Reliance said it was in not in a position to sign the contract as the available gas had already been allocated to other entities.
Earlier, the Chief Secretary inaugurated a 66/11 KV sub-station set up by Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd (TPDDL) at Bawana.

This new sub-station would go a long way way in providing stable and quality power supply to residential and industrial consumers of Bawana Industrial Area, said Srivastava.