NEW DELHI: The government seems to have begun deploying the considerable fiscal muscle of central public-sector enterprises to start dealing with large-scale stressed assets. On Wednesday, state-run utility major NTPC floated a tender to acquire commissioned stressed coal-based power plants in the country.
According to the tender, NTPC will shortlist suitable operational domestic coal-based power assets located in India for possible acquisition after evaluating the offered projects. Each plant up for consideration should have at least 500 Mw of capacity, making it clear that NTPC is only looking to acquire subcritical and supercritical power plants.
Currently, out of the 40 Gw stressed coal-based power generation capacity, about 12 Gw capacity worth around Rs 50,000 crore commissioned after April 1, 2014 is eligible under this tender.
NTPC’s requirements also say that any promoter or lender, authorised financial intermediaries of the power generation companies, independent power producers/developers are eligible to offer their operational domestic coal based power assets located in India. All power plants which have commercial date of operation (COD) on April 1, 2014 onwards are eligible under for acquisition by NTPC.
However, these plants must be designed for operating on 100 per cent domestic coal for the rated capacity and must have availability of coal for 85 per cent plant load factor or capacity utilisation.
The original equipment manufacturer / original equipment supplier shall also need to have indigenous manufacturing facilities for each boiler and turbine generator of the station.