BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Power Generation Corporation (OPGC) has filed a petition in the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) for determination of capital cost and final tariff of Units 3 and 4 from the date of commercial operation of Unit 3 on July 3, 2019 up to 2023-24.
In its multi-year tariff application, the State-owned PSU has sought an approval of Rs 3.38 per unit as energy charge for 2019-20 as against the OERC approved provisional tariff of Rs 2.75 per unit; and Rs 3.38 and Rs 3.63 per unit for 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively against provisional tariff determined at Rs 3.09 per unit.
While requesting OERC to allow billing of differential amount between final tariff to be approved by the Commission and the provisional tariff billed to GRIDCO till the issuance of the order, the petitioner has sought approval of the capital cost of Rs 9,725.69 crore and additional capitalisation of Rs 2,986.49 crore.
The additional capitalisation of Rs 2,910.24 in the current financial year as claimed by OPGC will have direct bearing on increase of annual fixed cost (AFC) to a significant level for which the proposed generation tariff of OPGC has increased to an unsustainable level, said power analyst Anand Mohapatra.
Besides, the delay in declaration of commercial operation (COD) of Units 3 and 4 of 660 MW each by two years has not been factored in the petition as a result of which, the total project cost and annual fixed cost have been increased significantly.
The State power trading utility Gridco has a long term power purchase agreement with the OPGC for purchase of 75 per cent of the installed capacity of the two super critical units up to March 2023 and total power from the company’s Ib Thermal Power Station from 2023-24.
The Units 3 and 4 of OPGC went for commercial operation on July 3, 2019 and August 21, 2019 respectively. The filing of this petition for determination of capital cost and multi-year tariff from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2024 is as per the OERC Tariff Regulations, 2020.
Inviting objections/suggestions from stakeholders to the OPGC petition, the Commission has decided to dispose of this case through a public hearing on January 4, 2022.