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Reliance Power today said that the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) pronounced judgment allowing Sasan Power’s appeal against Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) June order on Commercial Operation Date (COD) of Sasan UMPP.
APTEL has set side CERC’s impugned order and has directed CERC to decide the matter afresh including the issue of maintainability raised by Sasan Power Limited (SPL) without being influenced by its earlier findings, said a company press release. SPL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Power implementing Sasan UMPP.
Aggrieved by CERC’s order, which had set aside the certificate issued by Independent Engineer’s (IE) for declaration of COD of Sasan UMPP’s first 660 MW Unit based on petition filed by Western Region Load Dispatch Centre (WRLDC), SPL filed appeal before the APTEL on grounds that CERC’s order is "violative of principles of natural justice and is not tenable in law".
The Western Regional Load Despatch Centre, the transmitter of power, has disputed RPower’s claims on the commissioning date (COD).
WRLDC has petitioned the CERC questioning a test certificate of an independent engineer towards the performance test conducted for declaring commissioning of Sasan UMPP. This could impact the tariff which RPower controlled Sasan Power Ltd earns from the sale of power.RPower had produced the test certificate claiming March 30, 2013 as COD.
If this test certificate is taken as the basis for commissioning date, the first year of operation for the power plant would be 2012-13 during which it gets about 70 paise a unit (kilowatt per hour) for the power supplied from the power plant, said a government official who did not want to quoted. The same tariff continues for the second year but from the third year onwards the tariff rises more than 70%. The third year gets pushed ahead by an year if 2012-13 is not considered as the first year.
