Hry to buy 1k-MW coal power
Following negotiations, the Haryana government will sign a supplementary power purchase agreement (PPA) with Adani Power Ltd (APL) to supply about 1,050 megawatt (MW) of power generated from domestic coal at the agreed tariff of ₹2.94 per unit, said the officials.
The state government has come under criticism for not being able to enforce Adani Power to supply 1,424MW of contracted power to Haryana, thus compounding the power shortage. Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, on April 23, held a meeting with APL director Rajesh Adani and chief executive officer and managing director Anil Sardana to resolve the issue. There is a shortfall of about 2,400MW of power across the state every day, said officials.
This includes a shortfall of 1,424MW from Adani Power, 380MW from Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd (CGPL) — both companies halted supply six months ago — and 600MW from one of the two units of Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Plant in Hisar (which stopped working in September 2020).
Adani Power has had a contract with the Haryana government since 2008 to supply 1,424MW of electricity from its Mundra power project at a levelised tariff of ₹2.94 per unit for 25 years. According to APL, the increase in the price of imported coal has made generation at the power purchase agreement (PPA) tariff uneconomical. The company has sought the signing of a supplementary PPA to supply power generated from imported coal at a higher tariff as per the recommendation of a high-powered committee.
Officials in the know of the matter said that since the energy charges as per the PPA between Adani Power and the state government were based on a 70:30 ratio of contracted capacity based on domestic and imported coal respectively, the two entities have decided that APL will supply about 1,050MW power generated from the domestic coal at the agreed tariff of ₹2.94 per unit. “This means that we will drop the 30% contracted capacity based on the imported coal in the supplementary PPA. And there will be no pass-through of costs,’’ said an official on anonymity. A pass-through would have meant buying energy from APL at a higher cost instead of at ₹2.94 per unit, which is non-escalable as per the PPA.
Power officials said that choosing 70% domestic coalgenerated power was a practical decision in the circumstances as their plans to procure 500MW of short-term power from private firms were delayed due to last week’s order of the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission to allow the Haryana Power Purchase Centre to buy power from two private power producers from April to October each year instead of round the year.
“The situation will improve in the next 10-15 days since Adani Power has agreed to restore the supply of 1,050MW of power even before the supplementary PPA is executed. APL has started de-sealing its Mundra plant and the flushing of equipment is in progress,” said an official.