R-Power to soon generate revenue from electricity

Reliance Power, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) company, will soon start generating revenues from the sale of electricity, as it has started commercial operations of its first unit at Rosa Power Project in Uttar Pradesh.

The unit has a capacity of 300 Mw and achieved commercial operation declaration (COD) on March 12 , before the scheduled date of March 31. It started power generation three months ago and was undergoing various tests before wheeling power to the grid. The second unit is expected to start production in May.

Rosa is the first project to start commercial operations for Reliance Power, which is planning 13 power projects of more than 33,000 Mw. Revenues for the December quarter were at Rs 179.16 crore, mainly on account of interest accumulated on the IPO proceeds.

“The second unit of the 1,200-Mw Rosa Power Project, with four 300-Mw units, is also likely to start commercial production by May, and thus Reliance Power will have 600 Mw of power generation assets within the next three months,” said a company executive.Stage-I of the Rs 6,000-crore Rosa Power Project, implemented by Reliance Power’s subsidiary Rosa Power Supply Co (RPSCL), will see the supply of the entire 600 Mw of power generated to UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL), as in the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) signed on November 2006.

UPPCL was scheduled to get power from the first unit by April and from the second unit by July. Uttar Pradesh will get 900 Mw and the rest will be sold as merchant power to grids.

An IDBI Bank-led consortium of domestic banks will fund about Rs 2,000 crore for the second phase development of Rosa, planned at an investment of over Rs 2,700 crore. Rosa project has obtained all major approvals and clearances for its second phase development. Central Coalfields Ltd, from its mines in Jharkhand, will supply around 5 million tonnes per annum of coal to Rosa project. The engineering, procurement and construction contract for the project is with Shanghai Electric Company of China.

The company is likely to commission the four units of Rosa, besides a few units of the 4,000-Mw Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) in Madhya Pradesh and the 300-Mw group captive power project at Butibori near Nagpur in Maharashtra before 2012-end.