NTPC to enhance capacity to more than 51,000 MW by 2012

Chennai, Nov 10: State-owned power major NTPC Ltd will enhance its capacity to more than 51,000 MW by the year 2012, company Chairman and Managing Director T Sankaralingam said today.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the NTPC has decided to enhance the 11th Plan capacity addition target from 17,333 MW to 21,941 MW, making it a 51,000+ MW, doubling the existing power generation capacity by 2012.

Stating that it was planned to make the NTPC a 75,000+ MW company by 2017, he said currently, the capacity for 10,840 MW was under construction, 3,120 MW under the process of placing orders and 2,980 MW under tendering.

With the aim of emerging as an integrated power major, NTPC was entering coal mining business and it had been allocated coal mining blocks. It planned to produce about 50 MT of coal by 2017 to meet 20 to 25 per cent of its total coal requirement from its own mines.

By 12th Plan period, NTPC would be the largest coal producer in the country next only to Coal India Limited (CIL), he added.

Mr Sankaralingam said the company had also signed an MoU with Singareni Colleries Company Ltd to set up a joint venture company for taking up various activities in coal and power sectors.

He said the NTPC had also ventured into hydro sector by implementing projects at Koldam (800 MW), Loharinag Pala Hydro Power Project (600 MW) and Tapovan Vishnugad Hydro Project (520 MW).

Mr Sankaralingam said the NTPC earned a total revenue of Rs 28,750.7 crore during 2005-06, up by 15.38 per cent from the previous year. The company generated 170.88 billion units of electricity, which was 7.40 per cent higher than the previous year's generation of 159.11 billion units, he added.

Currently, the company had an installed capacity of 26,404 MW at its 14 coal-based, seven gas-based and four joint venture power stations. The company provided almost 28 per cent of the power generated in India with about 20 per cent of the country's generation capacity, he said.

During the half year of 2006-07, 87,715 million units of electricity was generated, compared to 80,669 million units in the half year of the previous year, registering a growth of 8.73 per cent.

The Gross revenue earned for the half year was Rs 15254.8 crore, compared to Rs 13164.3 crore in the half year of the previous years, registering a growth of 15.88 per cent, he said.

Mr Sankaralingam said the NTPC, which had a stake of 28.33 per cent in Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd, was spearheading revival of the project left abandoned for the last five years. The company had successfully commissioned 740 MW of the project out of the total capacity of 2150 MW, he said.

An MoU had been signed with the Railways Ministry for setting up a power plant of 1000 MW at Nabinagar in Bihar and a joint venture company with Reliance Energy had been formed to take up assignments of construction, erection and supervision in the power sector.

In line with NTPC's global initiatives, efforts had been made to enter overseas market particularly in the West Asia, Asia pacific and African regions for consultancy business and had already opened its representative office in Dubai.

NTPC was in the process of finalising an MoU with the Government of Sri Lanka for setting up a 2x250 MW coal-based power plant in Trincomalee region and was also exploring the possibility of setting up a power plant in Nigeria against which NTPC might import LNG from that country, he said.

UNI