Reliance Energy signs PPA with Purti Group

Nagpur, Jan 30 (UNI) Reliance Energy Trading Ltd (RETL), an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) company, today signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Nagpur-based Purti Sugar Mills Ltd for buying the surplus electricity from the latter's generation plant located near here.

The PPA was signed at a brief ceremony by Mahendra Kumar, Chief Executive, RETL, and Purti Sugar Mills Ltd Chairman Nitin Gadkari here this afternoon.

As per the PPA, RETL will buy 13 to 18 MegaWatt (MW) of power at a rate of Rs 4.16 per unit from the 22 MW power plant at Purti's sugar mill in Bela in Nagpur district. The contract, effective from April 1, 2007, is for an initial period of one year and is mutually extendable by two years.

Purti's co-generation power plant will use bagasse and biomass as the primary fuel and up to 30 per cent coal.

Bagasse is a by-product of sugarcane and will be available in-house to Purti.

Addressing the gathering, Mr Kumar said Reliance Energy Ltd was the largest power company in the private sector in the country.

It had a presence in all the three states where the power sector had been privatised, he said.

Mr Gadkari said Purti's power plant was the biggest co-generation plant operated by a sugar mill in Maharashtra. Power generation was expected to begin early next month, he said. Purti sugar mill crushed 75,000 tonnes of cane during last season and expected to crush 2.0 lakh tonnes this time, he said.

Purti Sugar Mills Ltd is part of the Purti Group headed by Mr Gadkari, the Maharashtra unit President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a former minister of the state cabinet.

UNI