POWER October 2013 - 34

TOP PLANTS
Mundra UMPP, Gujarat, India
Owner/operator: Tata Power
Courtesy: Tata Power
Tata Power's 4-GW ultra-mega power plant near the port city of Mundra in the western
state of Gujarat became fully operational this March despite serious fuel challenges,
establishing India's first 800-MW units based on supercritical technology.
Sonal Patel
I
ndia's emergence as an economic powerhouse
has been tempered by acute power
shortages that stem from severe supply
side constraints. In August 2012, although
the country's installed capacity soared to
207 GW, a crippling electricity deficit of up
to 12% persisted, centered on five northern
power-hungry states: Maharashtra, Madhya
Pardesh, Uttar Pardesh, Punjab, and Haryana.
The government has planned to increase
its new generating capacity target from 76
GW to more than 88.4 GW-the bulk from
new coal capacity-over its 12th Plan period,
which runs from 2012 to 2017, but it
also means to retire older energy-inefficient
plants and put in their place more advanced
supercritical thermal ones.
Complicating India's energy dilemma is a
2005 initiative by India's government to provide
" Power to all by 2012. " To address the
deepening supply-demand chasm by incentivizing
the injection of increased private investment
into power generation, the government at
that time also initiated an ambitious program
to build several " ultra-mega power plants "
(UMPPs). These comprise projects with an installed
capacity of 4,000 MW to make power
available at a minimum cost through economies
of scale of energy-efficient and environmentally
friendly technologies. However,
34
though it was a major initiative of the 11th
Plan (which ran from 2007 to 2012), so far,
power purchase agreements have only been
signed for four UMPPs-each on a buildown-operate
basis via competitive tariff-based
bidding.
In 2005, the government appointed the
Power Finance Corp. (PFC) as the nodal
agency for developing UMPPs, which in
turn set up " Special Purpose Vehicles " that
are tasked with all initial development work,
including obtaining required land, water,
coal blocks, and environmental and other
clearances for the project-even before the
projects are handed over to developers after
bidding is resolved. The developers are
primarily responsible for arranging funding
and technology, placing orders for key equipment,
as well as executing and operating
the project. To date, 16 UMPPs have been
planned in various states, including Andhra
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand,
Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,
Orissa, and Tamil Nadu.
The First UMPP
Tata Power's wholly owned subsidiary
Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd. (CGPL) in 2006
won the first of four bids awarded since 2005
for the Mundra UMPP. This plant-sited on
www.powermag.com
a well-connected site of about 1,305 hectares
in a coastal area south of Tunda village
in Mundra Taluka, in the Kutch District of
Gujarat-is also the first of those projects to
fully go live. All five of Mundra's 800-MW
units were commissioned between March
2012 and March 2013.
Between 2007 and 2009, Reliance Power
won bids for the remaining three UMPP
projects. In addition to the 3,960-MW Sasan
project in Madhya Pradesh, that company is
developing the six-unit 3,960-MW Krishnapatnam
plant in Andhra Pradesh (though
construction has now stalled) and the similar
3,960-MW Tilaiya project in Jharkhand,
whose construction has yet to begin (see more
in " India's First Coal Mine-Integrated Supercritical
Plant Synchronized " in POWER's
May 2013 issue). Those delays have been
blamed on recent events, which have posed
a number of serious hurdles to both developers,
forcing them to grapple with an array
of issues, from land acquisition and minerelated
clearances to a shortage of domestic
coal supply and unprecedented increases in
the prices of imported coal.
At 4,000 MW, CGPL's Mundra plant's
significance to India is underscored. The
plant supplies 2% of the nation's total power,
including power to five Indian states:
POWER | October 2013
http://www.powermag.com
POWER October 2013

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