While Reliance Power Limited, a part of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, recently achieved boiler light up for the second 660 MW unit at the 3,960 MW Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project, the All India Power Engineers Federation has written to the Central Electricity Authority demanding that a probe be conducted into the repeated tripping and shut down of the first 660 MW unit synchronized on March 9th this year.
The Sasan UMPP is the world’s largest integrated power plant and coal mining project with an estimated investment of over Rs. 23,000 crore. Coal production has already commenced from the 20 million tonnes per annum capacity Moher and Moher-Amlohri coal mines.
The achievement of boiler light up is considered a critical milestone in boiler commissioning activities for a unit.
According to the company, construction works at the remaining units are at an advanced stage and they would be commissioned over the next few months.
The AIPEF in its letter to the CEA said that the unit synchronized on March 9th and operating on scheduled mode since August 16th could achieve a Plant Load Factor of only 28 percent during the period August 16th to November 7th because of repeated tripping and shut down.
The power engineers’ representative body said that after synchronization on March 9th, the unit was put on trial run in the last week of the same month and achievement of parameters for commercial operation wrongly declared from March 31st. In the third performance test held in August, the unit could not run for 72 continuous hours above 95 percent but even then commercial operation was declared, the letter pointed out.
Secretary General of AIPEF Shailendra Dubey said that the poor performance of the unit was resulting in losses for the states assured of low cost and reliable power from the project. The share of Uttar Pradesh from the project is 12 percent and that of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana stands at 37.5 percent, 15 percent and 11.25 percent respectively.
The Sasan UMPP has a levelized tariff of 119.6 paisa per unit whereas for the first two years, power is to be supplied at 70 paisa per unit.
Dubey said that on one hand Uttar Pradesh was purchasing power from Reliance’s Rosa power plant in Shahjahanpur at more than Rs. 5.50 per unit and on the other, the low cost power assured to the state from the company’s Sasan UMPP was not being supplied. He said that Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited needed to take up the matter with the Centre and CEA and seek compensation from Reliance for the failure to supply low cost power from the Sasan UMPP.
