Fresh power capacity addition has fallen short of target by over a half in the year 2008-09, because of the delay in supply of critical components in thermal projects and non-availability of fuel.
According to the latest data provided by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), only 4,900 Mw, or 44 per cent of the targeted addition of about 11,061 Mw, was achieved in the twelve months ended March 31, 2009.
Also, this dismal addition in India’s power generation capacity last financial year is around 53 per cent of the capacity addition of 9,263 Mw achieved in the previous year (2007-08).
“There has been delay in commissioning of many units as Balance of Plant (BoP) equipment are not ready,” said a senior official from the ministry of power explaining the reasons for the slippage. BoP refers to components that are not part of main plan equipment like boilers, turbines and generators, but these are critical for safety and operational issues.
“Unavailability of BoP equipment alone has caused slippage of around 4,000 Mw in the year. BHEL has not been pursuant enough of its vendors to ensure supply of BoP,” the official added.
Of the total 513 BoP equipment required for the power projects under construction to achieve the capacity addition target of 78,700 mw in the current Plan period, orders for 121 or 24 per cent are yet to be placed, as per the data provided by CEA.
Last year, former power secretary Anil Razdan had agreed that “there had been some hold up on the Balance of Plant (BoP) side”. Commissioning of the projects was reviewed jointly by the power and finance ministries along with planning commission officials last year to identify the reasons behind the project delays.
The power ministry official also pointed out lack of availability of fuel as a reason for keeping on hold commissioning of some power plants.
He also added that the capacity addition figures have dropped down as a result of the recently changed definition of commissioning of power generating units.
In a bid to rectify the inflated official figures of capacity addition, the power ministry had announced in August last year that a generating unit should be declared commissioned only when it achieves Commercial Operation Declaration (COD) - the last of the five stages of completion.
As per the earlier definition, a power project could be declared as commissioned even when it is simply synchronised on oil, well before the completion of other stages like synchronisation on coal, full load operation, trial operation and finally COD.
This policy of declaring a unit commissioned based purely on synchronisation on oil has been in practice for over two decades and indicates how actual achievement of capacity addition targets is way short of those announced.
If the changed definition of commissioning is taken into account, the actual capacity addition last year comes down to around 3,453 Mw — about 38 per cent of the previous year’s addition.
Hydel almost on target, but thermal & nuclear...
The data shows that while the target for hydro capacity addition of 1,008 mw for the 12-months period from April 2008- March 2009 has almost been achieved, the targets for thermal and nuclear power capacity addition have seen huge slippages.
Of the total thermal power capacity addition of 9,304 Mw targeted in the period, only 2,484 mw - about 27 per cent - have been added. But the target for the nuclear capacity addition of 440 Mw which was to be added by the commissioning of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd’s (NPCIL) Rajasthan Atomic Power Plant (RAPP) unit- 5 and 6, has been missed completely.
“RAPP unit 5 and 6 have not been commissioned owing to lack of availability of Uranium because some state governments like Meghalaya are not giving the permission to mine the fuel. Thus, we had intentionally plan a delay in the commissioning of the plant,” said a senior official from the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), adding that the plant is expected to be commissioned in another six months period.
Experts of the industry have also confirmed that delays in installation of equipment has been a major constraint for capacity addition and it might hurt the overall plan period’s target.
“This is once again an indicator of how we are set to miss this Plan’s capacity target by a significant margin. In the beginning of every Plan period, the government sets huge targets, but suddenly it announces a shortfall in one year,” said a senior analyst from an accounting and consultancy firm.
