Monnet Power to commission 525 MW unit by Sept

The company had signed an MoU with the state govt in Sep 2006, it envisaged an investment of Rs 4,500 cr

Monnet Power Company Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd, hopes to commission the first 525 Mw unit of its 1050 Mw coal-based power plant in Odisha by September this year.

The power project is coming up at Chhendipada near Angul.

“The first unit (525 Mw) of our power plant will be commissioned by September 2013. The second unit of equal capacity is expected to be operational by December 2013. We have already invested Rs 4000 crore and will be investing another Rs 1500 crore on this project”, Sandeep Jajodia, chairman and managing director, Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd said after meeting chief secretary B K Patnaik and other top state officials.

Monnet Power had signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with the state government in September 2006. The MoU envisaged an investment of Rs 4500 crore.

Asked on progress of coal block awarded to the company, Jajodia said, “We had discussions on the coal block allotted to us. The company has also secured coal linkage for running the power plant.”Monnet Ispat & Energy had won the Utkal B2 coal block in the Angul-Chhendipada belt. The Odisha government has signed MoUs with 29 independent power producers (IPPs) for establishment of power projects. Of these only two- Sterlite Energy with capacity of 2400 Mw and GMR Energy have commissioned their plants. The IPPs envisaged a total generation capacity of 37,000 Mw and the state is expected to get about 6000 Mw as its share.

The other IPPs that are expected to go on stream by 2013-14 are Lanco Babandh Power Ltd, KVK Nilachal Pvt Ltd, Ind-Barath Energy (Utkal) Ltd, Maa Durga Thermal Power Company Ltd, Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd (JITPL) and Nava Bharat Power Pvt Ltd.

Ind-Barath's first unit with a capacity of 350 MW is set to go into generation from May 2013 with the second unit of equal capacity scheduled to be commissioned by June 2013. The company has proposed a power station of 1360 MW capacity at an investment of Rs 6450 crore. It has already invested Rs 2000 crore on the project.

JITPL which proposed a 1800 MW coal-based power plant at Deranga near Angul, hopes to commission its first 600 MW unit by December 2013. Having invested Rs 9121 crore, the company is almost through with the land acquisition process.