9 stalled gas-based plants now to generate 7 bn units of electricity

The government on Sunday announced revival of 9 stranded gas-based power plants with total installed capacity of 5,942 MW, which successfully bid electricity at Rs.4.70 per unit for six months beginning April, at the conclusion here of the reverse e-auction process.

"The auction process successfully concluded on March 20 wherein 9 plants emerged as preferred bidders and were allocated 7.62 million standard cubic meter per day (mscmd) e-bid RLNG (reliquefied natural gas)," said a power ministry statement.

"These plants would generate 6.79 billion units of which will be supplied at or below Rs.4.70 per unit to the purchaser discoms during the period from April 1, 2016 to September 30, 2016," it said.

"The re-auction resulted in aggressive negative bidding with the lowest bid at Rs.0.03 per unit. As a result there is estimated savings of Rs.18.29 crore to the government's Power System Development Fund," it added.

Sunday's reverse e-auction for stranded gas-based plants SGPs is the third phase of auctions conducted.

Auctions for the first and second phases were held in May and September respectively last year.

A total of 10 mscmd of RLNG will be imported to run SGPs and domestic gas plants (DGPs) between April 1 to September 30.

According to the bid document, while 8.9 mscmd of gas will be imported for SGPs, 1.1 mscmd will be allocated to DGPs.

The government is offering Rs.1,400 crore subsidy for SGPs and Rs.200 crore to the DGPs for buying imported gas to run their plants.

It had, in March last year, allowed gas imports by way of e-auctions for 31 gas-based power units, with a capacity of 14,000 MW, lying idle for lack of feed stock.

The 31 power stations with a combined capacity of 14,305 MW became eligible to apply for Power System Development Fund (PSDF) to generate 30 percent of their installed capacity using imported LNG.

In the first phase of auctions, 10 of the plants bid through reverse e-auction for generating over 5 billion units of electricity to be supplied at below Rs.5 per unit during peak summer, and in the second phase, 13 plants with an installed capacity of 8,262.08 MW emerged successful bidders.