Adding power: Govt to sign agreement with RGPPL

The State government is likely to sign a power purchase agreement with the Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private Limited in the coming week.

The State government is likely to sign a power purchase agreement with the Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private Limited (RGPPL) in the coming week.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said the RGPPL would finalise the details of it’s agreement by Monday. “The PPA will be signed any time after Monday,” he added. Earlier, in a meeting with RGPPL officials, the State government had pointed out that it was not possible for it to provide the Rs 450 crore sought by the RGPPL for the revival of the plant unless the PPA had been signed.

The RGPPL plant will generate a total of 2,100 MW of power by December 2007, as compared to the 350 MW it is generating now. An additional 350 MW of power will be generated by March end, and a total of 1,400 MW will be supplied by June, to provide relief to the State, which is reeling under a power shortage that exceeds 5,000 MW.

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Maharashtra, which was once power surplus, and even sold electricity to other states, has seen no additional power generation capacity being added in the last decade. This coupled with consumption rising at 1,000 MW per year, has lead to unprecedented power shortages and resulted in massive loadshedding.

The pipeline from Dahej in Gujarat to the RGPPL plant located near Guhagar at Ratnagiri, which will transport around 1.5 MMTPA of LNG, will be ready by April. The Maharashtra State Electricity Generating Company (MahaGenco) will also produce additional power from the Paras and Parli power plants to help the state tide over the peak demand in the summer months.

Maharashtra is also spending Rs 1300 crore to buy additional but costly power from states like Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. The Tata Power Company (TPC) is also expected to stop drawing around 500 MW for Mumbai from the state grid by March 6 after it’s power generating unit at Trombay is repaired, which will also lessen the power shortage.

In addition to this, the State also plans to revive the capacity in exercise in the power sector, and generate an additional 11000 MW of power by 2009- 10 from both, the public and private sector units.