Adani Power sweeps 3 transmission projects worth Rs 3,666 cr

Aggressive bids outsmart state-owned power grid & sector majors

The three big ticket transmission projects aimed at strengthening power evacuation in Chhattisgarh went to Adani Power. These projects saw big private sector companies and also state owned Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) pulling out of the bidding after being qualified, last month.

The levellised annual tariff quoted by Adani for Rs 823 crore Chhattisgarh A project was Rs 132 crore. This is eight per cent lower than the bid put by Sterlite Grid, the only bidder for this project after L&T, Essel Infra, Jindal Power, Kalpataru Power and European major Isolux pulled out of the bidding even after being qualified. Even state owned PGCIL for the first time in five years did not participate in bidding. In case of Chhattisgarh-B, which has the highest cost of Rs 1976 crore witnessed the lowest bid of was Rs 178 crore. L&T and Jindal Power pulled out of bidding for this project as well.

Sipat (Rs 863 crore) got the lowest bid of Rs 79 crore with the fight between PGCIL, Adani Power, Jindal Power, Sterlite Grid and Kalpataru Power. Second best bid was by Sterlite Grid with a margin of 13 per cent.

Four big ticket transmission projects went under the hammer last month. The bids for these three projects were called by Power Finance Corporation. Last week, the bids for Rs 400 crore Maheshwaram were called by Rural Electrification Corporation and Sterlite Grid won by quoting the lowest tariff of Rs 55 crore. Interestingly, Sterlite was the second lowest bidder in the three projects that Adani Power won.

The cumulative investment from the four projects is Rs 4,000 crore. This was the first tranche of transmission projects to come up post the statements made by power minister Piyush Goyal to ramp up the transmission capacity to fulfill his promise of ‘24X7 Power for All’. This was also the second major investment call private players in power sector after the bidding for two ultra mega power projects failed last year.