The Indian Government has announced that it will revive nine stranded gas-based power generation plants with an installed capacity of 5070 MW which has successfully bid through a transparent and competitive reverse e-auction process.
These plants would generate 8.81 billion units of electricity which will be supplied at or below Rs 4.70 per unit to the purchaser Discoms during the period from 1st October 2016 to 31st March 2017. This will involve government support of Rs 187.14 crore from the Power System Development Fund.
The auction process successfully concluded on September 3, 2016 wherein nine plants emerged as preferred bidders and were allocated 9.93 MMSCMD e-bid RLNG. The grid connected gas-based power generation capacity in the country is 24,150 MW. Of this, a capacity of 14,305 MW had no supply of domestic gas. These comprise 29 plants which were eligible to participate in the auction process held recently. 14 plants with a cumulative installed capacity of 7575 MW participated in the auction process for Phase IV. The successful bidders include power plants in Southern region. The generation from these plants would improve the power availability in the Southern grid, mitigating to a large extent the shortage of availability and constraint of evacuating the power to the Southern region from other regions.