India’s Chhattisgarh State and Gujarat’s State Lead Latest Spate of Indian Power Projects

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The Indian power generation industry continues to produce a spate of new projects, bidding announcements, and financial closures on approved projects. The process can sometimes seem tortuous to an outside observer as approvals bounce between central and state governments and the allocation of resources and feedstocks for specific projects is hammered out in open and heated debate. But the real pace of adding power generation capacity to match India’s 9% growth rate is supported by the number of new projects in process and approved.

In Chhattisgarh, the state government has signed seven Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of power plants with a combined capacity of 4,990 megawatts, representing a total investment of $4.6 billion. Dr. Raman Singh, the chief minister, said that Chhattisgarh is on track to become the country’s power hub by 2011 and with several major domestic investors preparing to set up thermal plants, the state has the potential to meet the power demand.

The seven projects that were signed for by the companies were: Essar Power $978 million – 1,050 MW; Bhushan Power Steel $850 million – 1,000 MW; Ispat Industries $531 million – 600 MW; Patni Power $457 million – 540 MW; Raipur Alloys Steel $531 million – 600 MW; DP Power $531 million – 600 MW and Lanco Amarkantak Power $755 million – 600 MW.

In the state of Gujarat, nine large power sector companies are expected to enter into an agreement with the government to set up a range of power projects with a combined generating capacity of 10,000 megawatts. The agreements are being signed at the Vibrant Gujarat Investor Summit.

Visa Power is signing an MoU with the government to set up a 1,000-megawatt (MW) coal-based power plant in the Amereli district with an investment of $957 million. A 1,000-acre site will be used for the project and the power generated will be used by Visa Steel and Visa Comtrade with the surplus fed to the grid. Hong Kong’s China Light and Power Company (CLP) is entering into an agreement to set up a 1,400 MW project through its local subsidiary Gujarat Pagathuan Energy Corporation. Other power companies that have signed project MoUs are Adani Enterprises, Torrent Power, CLP India, GSEC (Gujarat State Electricity Corporation), Videocon, Sanghi Industry and Jindal.

Essar Power (Bombay) is reported to be ready to invest $176 million in a 1,000 MW power plant in Jamnagar, western Gujarat, which will use imported coal as a feed. Essar made the lowest competitive bid at 45 cents per unit. Other coal-based projects are up for bidding in Gujarat. Essar is also building a dedicated 355 MW gas-fired combined cycle plant at Hazira to provide power for Essar Steel. This project is scheduled for completion in March. The company is also planning a further 175 megawatts of dedicated power for the company’s oil refinery and steel operations. A larger 1,500 MW gas-fired plant is also planned for Hazira and Essar is looking at new thermal, wind and hydroelectric projects.

In September of 2006, the state of Orissa signed ten power project MoUs representing a total of 10,920 megawatts of generating capacity.

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