Relief for stressed power plants is high on government’s agenda. PPA-3 is the third tranche of government’s auction of 2,500 MW for stressed power plants. This scheme was created to help gencos tide over some of their stress due to lack of contracted buyers. This is a central government scheme. Auctions are held in which gencos participate quoting the rates at which they can supply power to an aggregator. In turn, the aggregator makes efforts to sell powers to discoms.

For PPA-1 seven power plants with a combined capacity of 1,900 MW agreed to sell electricity against the call for 2,500 MW at Rs 4.24/unit. Successful bidders were RKM Powergen, Jhabua Power Ltd, MB Power Ltd (175 MW), SKS Power (300 MW), Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd, IL&FS Energy and JP Nigrie. The procuring discoms were Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar and Haryana.

For PPP-2, held in 2019, a tariff of Rs 4.41/unit was discovered. But buyers found the tariff to be too high. 4,000 MW of private generators competed for 2,500 MW auction in the second round. 13 companies including Jindal Power, JSW Energy, Adani Power and Sembcorp emerged as the successful bidders. However, lack of interest of state power utilities owing to higher tariff of Rs 4.41 per unit discovered through the reverse auction process led to the cancellation of the auction. NHPC’s competence as an aggregator was questionable.

So, the power ministry now has advised nodal agency Power Finance Corporation-arm PFC Consultancy Ltd (PFCCL) to call the bids again. PTC India has replaced NHPC as the aggregator. It will sign PPAs with successful bidders and ink back-to-back power supply agreements separately with discoms interested in buying power from these units.

Similarly, the power ministry has finalized two schemes to procure 4,000 MW from gas-based power plants. Gas-based units which were put up at a cost of about Rs 100,000 crore are stranded. 2,000 MW from gas-based plants will be bought through auction and will be bundled with an equal capacity of solar power. Another 2,000 MW will be procured through online reverse auction. Both schemes are proposed to be run without subsidy for a minimum of three years.

The details of this scheme, important NPA resolution related developments and the key findings of the IEEFA report on the status of thermal plants which are on the verge of becoming NPA, are the other sections of the cover story.