Anil Ambani group's Rosa power project ahead of schedule

Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Nov 23 (IANS) The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) hopes to commission the first phase of its 1,200-MW, Rs.50-billion (over $1 billion) power plant here some six months ahead of schedule, with commercial generation set to start from September next year, a senior official has said.

The Rosa Power Project, located around 160 km from state capital Lucknow, has already signed the power purchase pact with the electricity board and entails one of the biggest investments in the state, said its project chief Ganesan Amudhan.

'Phase-I will supply power to neighbouring villages and is only for the state of Uttar Pradesh. Phase-II will cater to the needs of other states but we have not finalised the details regarding the power sale,' he said.

'Only about 56 percent of villages in Uttar Pradesh have electricity. This plant will also help a lot of villagers in the vicinity to power their water pump-sets for irrigation,' Amudhan told IANS during a site visit.

The company has already inked the coal linkage pacts with Central Coal Fields Ltd and will use boilers and turbines from Shanghai Electric, which will prove to be cost-effective, with faster deliveries, he added.

'We have also hired Black and Veatch - a US-based engineering, consulting and construction company - to oversee our quality standards and compliance.'

The Rosa Power Supply Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Power, is implementing the project under a debt-equity ratio of 80:20, with the privately-run IDBI bank as the lead financial institution.

Reliance Power also has won the bids for two ultra mega power projects of 4,000 MW each at Sasan in Madhya Pradesh and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and has projects totalling 28,000 MW in its kitty.

Reliance Power on its own and through subsidiaries is currently developing as many as 13 medium and large-sized power projects, company officials said.

Of these, projects in western India will account for 12,220 MW, in the north for 9,080 MW, in the northeast for 2,900 MW and in the south for 4,000 MW.

The group's 7,480-MW project to be located at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, not far from the national capital, is expected to be the world's largest gas-fired power project at a single location, officials said.