The Telangana Power Generation Corporation (TGENCO) plans to add 5,360 mw involving an investment of Rs. 29,000 crore.
It has a number of ongoing projects of 8,000 mw capacity - enough to make the State self sufficient in power. The capacity addition will be made in a phased manner to ensure quality and uninterrupted power supply, said D. Prabhakar Rao, the new Chairman and Managing Director of TGENCO.
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, had given him the mandate to make Telangana a power surplus State in the next three years. “I will do my best to achieve the goal during the current year itself,” Mr. Rao said after assuming charge on Thursday.
The installed capacity of the company as on date was 4,365.3 mw. Of this thermal accounted for 2,282.5 mw, hydro 2,081.80 mw and solar 1 mw. Along with the Central and independent power projects share the total capacity touched 8,000 mw. Still there was a shortfall of 2,000 mw. This would be bridged with the commissioning of the ongoing projects of 960 mw with a capital investment of Rs. 5,643 crore, Mr. Rao said.
Other projects in the pipeline included 800 mw capacity each at KTPS extension and Bhoopalapally extension, 1,320 mw at Ramagundam, 600 mw at Sattupally besides gas based projects in Karimnagar and Shankarpally. Chief Minister was keen that power projects were set up in the backward regions of Mahabubnagar and Adilabad districts too, Mr. Rao said.
He said the Chief Minister wanted the thermal load factor to be raised to 100 percent. “There are some technical problems but we will definitely try to touch 90 per cent,” Mr. Rao said.
He saw no problem in bringing in the investment as the company’s balance sheet was very good. The net worth of the company was Rs. 2,400 crore while its asset base was Rs. 14,905 crore. Power Finance Corporation and banks were coming forward to finance. “There is absolutely no problem to achieve financial closure,” he said.
To a question, he said the tariff was bound to come down in the days to come as the Chief Minister wanted all capacity additions to be made by only TGENCO which would lead to cost reduction.