Apart from the 14 projects whose bank guarantees have been encashed, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd is looking at deadline compliance of 14 other projects, an official of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said. NVVN, the nodal agency entrusted with rolling out the 1,000 MW, Phase-I of the National Solar Mission, had said last week that it had encashed the bank guarantees of 14 solar projects that had not met the January 9 deadline.

MNRE had previously told Bloomberg that 120 MW (of the 140 MW bid out in the first round of Phase I of NSM) had met the deadline, on the basis of information received from Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Ltd. It appears that RRECL had taken as completed even projects that had been partially completed. Subsequently, MNRE and NVVN had to decide (a) whether or not to treat the partially completed projects (but producing power) as having met the deadline and (b) if not, whether or not to penalise them, and if yes, how.

They decided that the partially completed projects had not met the deadline. There were two ways of penalising them – to encash the bank guarantee or to treat January 9, 2012 as the date from which their 25-year PPA period would start—in which case they will lose revenue. MNRE-NVVN decided in favour of the former. This means that for those projects whose BGs have been encashed, the 25-year-period would start from the date on which their projects are fully completed, and not January 9. And now, the focus is on the other 14 projects, whose deadline compliance is being looked into.

> mramesh@thehindu.co.in

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