If there was adequate gas supplied to it, Delhi's mega power generating unit, the PPCL Pragati-III Power Project at Bawana, would have been adding 750 MW of power to the city's available quantum.
The multi-crore gas-based plant requires 2.8 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meter Per Day to generate 750 MW of power, which is also half of its installed capacity of 1500 MW. As on date the plant is supplied 1.564 MMSCMD power, which is just about enough to generate 300 MW of power.
The plant that was touted to provide Delhi clean and cheap power has so far been in the news for delays in commissioning followed by the hiccups in the supply of gas.
On Wednesday a concerned Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who went to inspect the power plant, assured the officials of intervening on their behalf to secure more gas and also gave instructions for the completion of the second unit of the plant by December 2012.
Post inspection, Ms. Dikshit said the Union Ministry of Petroleum has agreed to sanction 0.836 MMSCMD gas from the KG – D-6 Basin of Reliance Industries Limited in addition to the current release of 1.564 MMSCMD gas for the plant, after which the total allocation will rise to 2.4 MMSCMD for the first unit (module-1).
Ms. Dikshit said with the commissioning of the first unit of Bawana, Delhi has been able to generate its own power after a gap of about 15 years. “Power generated from PPCL Pragati-III Bawana is clean and cheaper than the power generated from coal based plants. The generation of around 1500 MW power on completion of the project will, no doubt, lessen dependence on national grid to meet growing power needs of the Capital,” she said.
The Chief Minister instructed PPCL and BHEL to make the second unit functional by the year-end so that the city can benefit from the plant becoming fully operational. She assured that her Government has taken steps to, “overcome hassles coming in the way of procuring gas”. The City Government, she said will take up the issue of availability of 2.8MMSCMD gas for the second unit (module-2) with the Union Petroleum Ministry.
Referring to the growing demand for power during the next few months, Ms. Dikshit said instructions have been gi-ven to make available the required power and that there will be no shortage in the City.
Faced with a shortfall of gas, the Delhi Government has been petitioning the Central Government and even wrote to the Prime Minister's officer to step in and secure the required supply of gas for running the plant.