The Hindu Business Line : BHEL, Karnataka Power sign pact for projects

Bangalore, Jan. 12 Public sector BHEL and the State Government-owned Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd signed a joint venture agreement for setting up projects totalling 2,400 MW at Yeramarus and Yedlapur, both in Raichur district.

The projects, costing about Rs 12,000 crore, would be implemented through a special purpose company. Infrastructure Development Finance Company would have a 48 per cent equity stake in the special purpose company. The remaining 52 per cent would be held by BHEL and KPCL equally.

The project equipment comprising the boiler turbine generating (BTG) unit would be supplied by BHEL.

This is BHEL’s second joint venture power project: The other being the 1,600-MW project at Udangudi, Tamil Nadu. The projects would be based on BHEL’s supercritical technology.

Work to start soon

BHEL’s Chairman and Managing Director Mr Ravi Kumar signed the memorandum of understanding with KPCL’s Managing Director Mr S.M. Jaamdar here on Monday.

Work on the project would start immediately, Mr Kumar said. He said that BHEL had set up manufacturing capacities for supercritical generation sets ranging from 270 to 800 MW.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister of State for Power Mr Jairam Ramesh said, “The projects will be completed irrespective of the government in power in the State or in the Centre.”

Unit Orders

KPCL is also placing orders for BTG with BHEL for its Raichur unit eight of 250 MW and for its 500-MW BTPS unit three. In fact, all of KPCL’s thermal generation is powered by BHEL generation sets. The additions are likely to push up the gross capacity to about 13,000 MW by the end of the 12th Plan.

Mr Jaamdar said that while the BTG sets would be sourced from BHEL, the pricing would be benchmarked to international levels.

This was despite the fact that BHEL’s BTG supply is not through engineering procurement and construction.

International benchmarking also implied that BHEL would have to meet the stringent performance guarantee specifications offered by global manufacturers. BHEL already offers performance guarantees of about 85 per cent plant load factor.

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