According to the company sources, an agreement to design, engineer and build the $1.1-billion (Rs 4,716-crore) power plant on an aggressive timeline was reached between the senior management of Canasia and CNEEC in Beijing last week.
Canasia Power Corp, a power development company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Jawaharpur Power India Pvt Ltd, had signed and received a counter-guarantee from the Uttar Pradesh government for its 800-Mw thermal power station in 1993.
The project was initially designed as a sub-critical 800-Mw (two 400 Mw units) thermal power plant. In view of increasing environmental concerns and the deepening power needs in the state and the country, Canasia increased the capacity of the plant from 800 Mw to 1,320 Mw, a 65 per cent increase. It also converted from conventional to supercritical, clean-coal technology for further mitigating environmental impact and increasing efficiencies.
The state government has guaranteed to buy all the power produced by the station for 30 years through the UP Power Corporation Ltd. The power plant will be designed and built by a consortium of foreign and Indian companies through an international tender bid process with an emphasis on Canadian participation, which could be around $300-400 million (Rs 1,286 crore to Rs 1,715 crore). The majority ownership will also be Canadian, through Canasia.
The power supply from Jawaharpur plant will also help reduce air pollution in the important cities of Delhi and Agra by potentially shutting down tens of thousands of small- to medium-sized diesel generators operating as back-up power systems, sources claimed.
