Suzlon, Vestas vie for Rs600 cr NTPC deal
Suzlon, Vestas vie for Rs600 cr NTPC deal
Wind power companies such as Suzlon Energy Ltd and Vestas RRB India Ltd are competing for the Rs600 crore wind power project of NTPC Ltd, India’s largest power generation company, which is seeking to reduce its dependance on thermal energy.
“To start with, we are looking at 100MW of wind power capacity. Both Suzlon and Vestas have evinced interest. The notice inviting tenders for the project are already out. We plan to award the project within the next three months," an NTPC executive, who did not wish to be identified, said.
Executives at Suzlon Energy and Vestas declined comment.
NTPC, which generates 29,144MW of power, plans to use sources such as wind, hydro, solar, biomass and geo-thermal energy to generate 1,000MW by 2017. It has signed an agreement with the Asian Development Bank for 500MW of renewable energy generation, as reported by Mint on 6 February.
While it takes a capital investment of Rs3-4.2 crore to generate 1MW of power from coal and gas, it costs around Rs5.5-7 crore to generate the same amount from wind.
“The renewable energy plan of NTPC makes sense as the national tariff policy has fixed a 5% procurement criteria from renewable sources within five years," Shubhranshu Patnaik, an executive director at audit and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, had said earlier.
Some state electricity regulatory commissions, such as those of Gujarat and Maharashtra, have already fixed the amount of energy which needs to be procured from renewable energy sources.
In another development, the US-based Washington Group and Singareni Collieries Ltd are the only entities that have submitted bids for developing Pakhri Barwadih block owned by NTPC. The block has gross reserves of 1,350 million tonnes (mt) of coal.
“These are the two of the four players who had earlier evinced interest who are still in the fray. We plan to finalize the contract shortly and the price bid will be opened on 25 April," the NTPC executive said.
NTPC currently requires 122.94 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of coal, and it expects this to grow further as a substantial portion of the new capacity will be coal based. In order to meet the requirement, NTPC plans to double coal imports to 5mtpa in the current year and will soon float a global tender for the same. The company plans to add 22,430MW of capacity by 2012.
NTPC registered a net profit of Rs7,129.30 crore on revenues of Rs37,004.60 crore in 2007-08.
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