CERC passes order on Reliance Power's Sasan UMPP

Company is examining CERC's order on WRLDC's petition and will take appropriate legal steps including filing an appeal in Aptel

Electricity regulator CERC has said that the first 660 MW unit of Reliance Power's 3,960 MW Sasan project could not achieve its "full load" in March 2013 and rejected its plea to appoint an independent technical committee to look into the readiness of that unit.

"We do not find any requirement to constitute a committee as suggested by the petitioner (Reliance Power's Sasan Power Ltd) in view of our finding that the unit-3 (first unit of the Sasan project) of the generating station was unable to achieve its full load on March 31, 2013," the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission said in an order.

Reacting to the order, Reliance Power said in a statement it would take appropriate legal steps including filing an appeal in the Tribunal.

The latest order follows another CERC directive passed in June last year, which was challenged by Reliance Power in the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (Aptel). The tribunal then directed the regulator to pass a fresh order on the matter.

"The COD (Commissioning Date) declaration on the basis of the certificate of Independent Engineer issued on March 30, 2013 was not as per the provisions of PPA," CERC said in its latest order dated August 8 on the matter relating to commissioning of Sasan project's first unit.

When contacted, a Reliance Power spokesperson said: "Reliance Power is examining CERC's order on WRLDC's petition and would take appropriate legal steps including filing an appeal in Aptel."

The regulator took up the matter on a petition filed by the Western Regional Load Despatch Centre (WRLDC), part of state-owned Power Grid Corp.

As per provisions in the PPA, commissioning date cannot be declared unless the results of the performance test show that the unit tested capacity is not less than 95 per cent of its contracted capacity as existing on the effective date.

In the last one year, Reliance Power has started operations of another three units at Sasan project taking that plant's total operating capacity to 2,640 MW.

The company has also achieved boiler light up of fifth unit and hopes to put the remaining two units into operations before the end of current fiscal.

According to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), even for declaring a de-rated capacity, the concurrence of all the procurers is essential.

The order said: "Admittedly, the generating company (Sasan Power Ltd) and the procurers both stand to benefit from it, but such declaration of COD against the established norms and PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) provisions can't be allowed because it makes a mockery of the established system.

"Therefore, the certificate issued by the Independent Engineer on March 31, 2013 declaring COD at a lower capacity of 101.38 MW is not in order and hence cannot be sustained.