New Delhi: After months of uncertainty,
Bawana power plant, built at a cost of Rs 4,500 crore, will
finally be commissioned next month as the Oil Ministry has
allocated natural gas for the plant which will initially
generate 750 mega watt of power.
"The plant will be commissioned in the second week of
November as Oil Ministry has informed us about allocation of
the natural gas," Delhi Power Minister Harun Yusuf told PTI.
The ONGC will supply 1.564 mmscmd (million metric
standard cubic metres per day) gas to the 1500 MW capacity
plant from western offshore fields and the fuel will be priced
at USD 5.25 per million British thermal units.
The fate of the plant had become uncertain after
Reliance Industries Ltd refused to supply gas for the plant
from its KG-D6 gas fields in Andhra offshore following delay
in its commissioning.
Following the refusal, Delhi Government had approached
the Prime Minister`s Office seeking its intervention in
getting gas for the plant.
"We have received a letter from the Oil Ministry
informing us about the allocation of gas to the plant," Yusuf
said.
The commissioning of the plant will improve the power
situation in the city up to a great extent.
Officials said the city Government has requested Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to inaugurate the plant whose
foundation stone was laid by him in March 2008.
Although the Centre now has allocated gas at domestic
price for generation of 750 MW of power at the plant, Delhi
Government was still clueless about procuring gas for
production of the remaining 750 MW of power.
"We have requested Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar
Shinde to help us in getting gas for remaining turbines,"
Yusuf said.
The power plant is being built by the Delhi Government
with an investment of about Rs 4,500 crore and three turbines,
with a production capacity of 750 MW have already been
synchronised while construction of three other turbines are
expected to be completed earlier next year.
The Centre had allocated 0.93 mmscmd gas from Reliance`s
Andhra offshore KG-D6 fields for Bawana for 2009-10 and
2010-11 but as plant missed scheduled deadline, Delhi
Government could not sign the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement
with RIL.
The plant was supposed to be ready well ahead of last
year`s Commonwealth Games in October.
In April this year, after synchronisation of two
gas-fired turbines of 250 MW at the plant, Delhi Government
had approached RIL to sign the contract.
But Reliance said it was in not in a position to sign
the contract as available gas has already been allocated to
other entities.
The plant is crucial to augment the power supply in the
city as demand has been on the rise in the last few years and
it had touched an all-time high of 5,028 mega watt on August 2
this year.
Currently, Delhi`s power demand ranges from 3,700 MW to
5,100 MW, depending on the weather condition.
The city gets 2,400 MW from central quota, while nearly
1,000 MW is produced by Delhi`s own electricity generating
stations.
As per projection by Central Electricity Authority, the
power demand in Delhi will jump to 8,700 MW by the year 2017.
The city government plans to increase its own generation
to 4,100 MW in the next five years.
PTI
