NTPC board okays extension of tenure of CMD Gurdeep Singh till July 2025

 State-run power giant NTPC's board on Monday approved the extension of tenure of the company's chairman and managing director Gurdeep Singh till July 31, 2025.

Singh's extended term will start from February 4, 2021.

The board of directors of the company in its meeting "approved the extension of tenure of Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director of NTPC from February 4, 2021 till July 31, 2025 i.e. date of his superannuation or until further order, whichever is earlier," a BSE filing said.

Singh had taken over as chairman and managing director of NTPC on February 4, 2016.

He started his career in 1987 as an engineer trainee with NTPC and has worked his way through various ranks in both public sector and private sector.

He has wide ranging experience entailing all aspects of power generation business.

His rich experience has seen him serving as plant operation engineer as well as top leadership positions.

Prior to joining NTPC, he was managing director of Gujarat State Electricity Company (GSECL).

Before GSECL, he worked with Powergen, CLP, AES, IDFC and CESC.

He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Kurukshetra and has undergone Management Education Programme from IIM Ahmedabad.

He has received management and leadership training from global institutions like Sad Business School-Oxford, Darden School of Management-Virginia, USA, Singapore Civil Services College-Singapore, ISB-Hyderabad, etc.

NTPC extends payment deadline of outstanding dues for discoms till March 17

State-owned power giant NTPC  has decided to extend the deadline for defaulting discoms for making payment of outstanding dues till Tuesday next week, post which electricity supplies will be snapped.

NTPC has given this breather to the defaulting discoms in view of Holi festival on Tuesday after some discoms assured that they will clear the dues.

Later last month, the NTPC had given notices to these discoms for making payment of overdue outstanding amounts, saying that power supply would be cut on from midnight tonight.

An outstanding becomes overdue after 60 days of rasing the bill against power supplied to a discoms or state. The gencos generally charge penal interest on these overdue amounts.

According to the notices available on the company's portal, these defaulting discoms are in Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, Odisha, Bihar, Manipur, Mizoram, Kerala, Sikkim and Puducherry.

"Due to mounting outstanding dues of around Rs 10,950 crore, the NTPC has issued (power cut) regulation notices to various beneficiaries to be made effective 0000hrs of March 10, 2020. Subsequently, based on request of beneficiaries and due to festival of Holi on March 10, the NTPC has extended the date of Regulation to be effective from 0000hrs of March 18, 2020," a source told PTI.

"This is an ongoing process and the NTPC is receiving encouraging response from almost all the beneficiaries and it is hopeful of receiving the outstanding amount in time to avoid regulation," the source added.

According to the notices, the NTPC had planned to cut 16,475 MW power supply to these discoms in different states.

Among the states and union territories, Jammu & Kashmir utility total outstanding dues were the highest at Rs 3,619.93 crore followed by Uttar Pradesh at Rs 3,274.51 crore, Telangana at Rs 3,138.55 crore as per the notices served last month.

NTPC to start commercial operation of 250 mw unit of Barauni Power Station

State-owned power major NTPC on Friday said its 250 mw unit of Barauni Thermal Power Station in Bihar will start commercial operation from March 1.

In a regulatory filing, NTPC said the 250 megawatt (mw) unit of Barauni Thermal Power Station Stage-II (2 x 250 MW) is declared on commercial operation with effect from March 1, this year.

With this, the commercial capacity NTPC and NTPC group will become 48,895 mw and 57,356 mw respectively, the filing said.

Barauni Thermal Power Station (720 mw) is located at Begusarai district in Bihar.

The plant comprise of Stage-I (2x110 mw) and Stage-II (2x250 MW), the government had said earlier.

Shares of NTPC were trading at Rs 109.55 a piece on BSE in the morning trade, up 0.69 per cent from its previous close.

In a first, NTPC to bid for Avantha's Jhabua thermal plant under IBC

India’s largest state-owned power producer NTPC Limited is likely to bid first time for a stressed asset under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). NTPC will bid for Avantha Power’s Jhabua thermal power project (1,200 MW) which has been submitted to National Company Law Tribunal by an Axis Bank-led lender consortium.

Company sources said banks were ready to finance the “war chest” that NTPC would use to bid for projects NCLT. NTPC will only participate in bidding held under IBC. Executives said the company will follow strict criteria for shortlisting assets for bidding.

“We are looking at projects which have any kind of coal supply stream, robust infrastructure built by noted contractor, land and allied clearances and in either operational or about to be operated state,” said a senior company executive requesting anonymity. Lack of power purchase agreement (PPA) with the project is not a hindrance as NTPC would be able to facilitate power sale, said a senior executive.

“NTPC would either pursue states to sign long term PPA (25 years), or sell through medium-term contracts through central agencies. If nothing, we can also use these units for selling power in merchant or spot market,” he said

NTPC had earlier shortlisted 10,000 Mw of capacity which matched its criteria. It had also issued a tender to purchase stressed assets and received interest from four companies. As per sources, it didn’t reach closure due to issues around the “valuation of a project”.

Jhabua is in the list of close to 40 stressed thermal power units that are deemed to become non-profitable assets (NPAs). Earlier efforts to sell the Jhabua power plant did not yield any results. Its sale deal with Goyal MG Gases also fell through.

Jhabua commissioned in 2016 is located in Madhya Pradesh. Of the planned 1,200 Mw, only one unit of 600 MW was commissioned. The coal source for the plant was tied up with Mahanadi Coalfields and South-Eastern Coalfields. The plant has been operating at below optimum capacity. Earlier it was due to low demand from its beneficiary states Madhya Pradesh and Kerela. Later the parent company did not infuse required working capital and the plant also faced coal supply crunch. The project is Rs 4,800 crore and has debt of Rs 3,488 crore.

NTPC snubs foreign emissions tech for plant, shuts out GE from $2-bn orders

"The conditions for the (pilot) test was that we can't touch special parts at all, we can't touch furnace tubes. NTPC did not allow us," Senthilvel Rangasamy, a GE representative, said in the meeting.

Premchand Talreja, the managing director of the Indian unit of Yara, said the pilot tests achieved the desired results.

"There should not be doubt on the technology itself," Talreja said in the meeting.

Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and previously a member of a European Union technical working group on emissions by coal-fired utilities, said India has failed to curtail emissions due to "delay and misinformation tactics by the power industry".

"The power industry managed to build a myth that Indian coal is so special that technologies proven on a wide range of coal types elsewhere need to be tested and validated again in India before the standards can be implemented," Myllyvirta told Reuters.

NTPC inks Rs 5,000 crore term-loan pact with SBI for capex spending

Power generation company NTPC on Saturday said it has signed a term loan agreement for Rs 5,000 crore was signed with State Bank of India (SBI).

The loan facility has been extended at an interest rate linked to 3-month MCLR (marginal cost of funds-based lending rate) of the bank and has a door-to-door tenure of 15 years, NTPC said in a statement.

The loan will be utilised to part finance the capital expenditure of NTPC, it said.

Read our full coverage on NTPC

NTPC likely to raise funds through green bonds for THDCIL, NEEPCO stake

State-run power giant NTPC is likely to raise around Rs 10,000 crore through green bonds for acquisition of the government's stake in THDC India Ltd (THDCIL) and North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd (NEEPCO), a source said.

Proceeds from green bonds are used to finance clean and green and environment-friendly infrastructure. Since THDCIL and NEEPCO are hydro-power generators, any investment in these two firms would fall in the category of green bonds.

"The company is most likely to raise over Rs 10,000 crore via green bonds to acquire government stake in THDCIL and NEEPCO. The acquisition is likely to be before the end of this fiscal as the government intends to achieve its disinvestment target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore," the source told PTI.

"The company has not started the process to appoint a valuer to fix the value of the central government stake in THDCIL and NEEPCO," the source added.

Earlier this week, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved a proposal of the finance ministry for divestment of central government stake in THDCIL and NEEPCO.

Government of India's shareholding of 74.23 per cent in THDCIL will be divested along with transfer of management control to NTPC.

Similarly, the government's shareholding of 100 per cent in NEEPCO will be divested along with transfer of management control to NTPC.

According to the company's annual report, NEEPCO's net worth as on March 31, 2019 was Rs 6,301.29 crore.

The net worth of THDCIL was Rs 9,280.78 crore as on March 31, 2019.

The source said the size of the deal for acquisition of government share in THDCIL and NEEPCO has been worked out to be around Rs 10,000 crore after necessary adjustments like debt and other charges.

The acquisition will be in line with NTPC's objective of having 30 per cent renewables out of 130 GW of total envisaged power generation capacity by 2030. At present, the NTPC Group has around 57 GW of power generation capacity.

According to NEEPCO's website, the company operates seven hydro, one solar and three thermal power stations with a combined installed capacity of 1,457 MW.

NEEPCO also has one 600 MW hydro power project under development. It is scheduled for commissioning in 2019-20 fiscal.

THDCIL's total installed power generation capacity is 1,513 MW. It has two hydro power generating stations -- Tehri (4X250 MW) and Koteshwar (4X100 MW) and two operational wind power plants in Gujarat -- one at Patan (25X2 MW) and another at Devbhumi Dwarka (30X2.1 MW).

L&T bags 'significant' order from NTPC to set up FGD system at MP plant

Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday said its power business has bagged a "significant" order from NTPC to set up flue gas desulphurisation system at Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station in Madhya Pradesh.

L&T has received engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) order to set up flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) system at Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station at stage-I & II (6x210 mega watt (MW) & 2x500 MW, the company said in a BSE filing.

This is in continuation to the order received for Stage III 0 IV (2x500 MW 0 2x500 MW) in September last year, it added.

The company did not provide value of the contracts but said the orders fall under "significant" category which ranges between Rs 1,000 crore and Rs 2,500 crore as per its classification of contracts.

L&T said installation of FGD systems in existing and upcoming thermal power plants has been made mandatory by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, to curtail S02 emissions.

Shares of L&T were trading 0.31 per cent higher Rs 1,291 apiece on BSE.

NTPC plans to spend Rs 20,000 cr on 5,000-Mw ultra mega solar park in Kutch

The country’s largest power producer NTPC plans to set up an ultra-mega solar park in Gujarat for a phased capacity of 5000 MW at an estimated investment of Rs 20,000 crore.

“We have identified two-three locations in the Kutch district and the park is likely to developed at Rs 4 crore per MW cost,” said Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director for NTPC. He added the company is also exploring Rajasthan as a location for another solar park.

NTPC is also considering spot market options to sell some part of its solar power, without signing long term power purchase agreements. “We are exploring if we can have some capacity on merchant basis,” Singh added.

As part of its ultra-mega solar park plans, NTPC will also look to invite other solar power developers to invest in these solar parks. “Others can also be invited to set up capacity in these solar parks and sell the power outside or back to us,” Singh added.

NTPC is also betting big on solar as well waste-to-energy plants. “We target to have 30,000 MW plus capacity of renewable power by 2030,” Singh said. As on June 2019, NTPC’s total installed capacity was at 55,786 Mw.

In the waste-to-energy segment, NTPC is collaborating with city municipal corporations for waste-supply. The company will develop a waste-to-energy plant with two city municipal corporations- East Delhi and Surat, Singh added. While the official did not share investment details, he expects regulated returns in the range of 15.5 per cent from the waste-to-energy initiative. The construction time for these plants is 30 months from the date of contract award.

The larger company strategy also includes blending solar with coal-sourced power off-take. The company will explore the battery technology as a transit option for its existing thermal and solar power capacities.

In addition to solar parks, NTPC is also working on options in the floating solar segment. “We are looking at if we can keep capacities from floating solar for the open market,” Singh said, referring to the large water reservoirs at power plants which could provide an opportunity for floating solar capacity. In its presentation, NTPC said 125 MW Floating Solar projects are under implementation for Merchant Sale.

In terms of inorganic growth, Singh added the company is exploring purchase of two coal-based power assets and one hydro power plant at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

Coal crunch shuts down three units of NTPC's plant in Odisha's Kaniha

State-owned NTPC Ltd said on Monday it has shut down three 500 Mw units of the 3000 Mw (6x500) super thermal power station at Kaniha near Talcher after a workers strike at Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) snapped supply of the fuel.

NTPC's Kaniha station has not got coal since July 25. Power production at the plant has dwindled to 1000 Mw against its capacity of 3000 Mw. NTPC Kaniha has been historically running its plant at a Plant Load Factor (PLF) exceeding 90 per cent. A statement by NTPC said the rest three units of the plant are running at 'technical minimum' with generation totaling to 900-1000 Mw.

To run all the six units (500 Mw each) at their peak rated capacity, NTPC Kaniha needs 55,000 tonnes of coal supplies each day. Bogged down by the coal crisis, NTPC's units are running on partial load.

NTPC said it is making efforts to direct coal from other sources to alleviate the crisis.

Workers at MCL's Talcher coalfields have gone on a strike since July 24 evening, protesting the incident at Bharatpur open pit coal mining project. Due to alleged negligence by the concerned manager, there was a strata failure at the mines, leading to landslide. While three bodies were extricated from the debris, around 10 injured were rushed to the hospital for expedient treatment.

The six-day stir has paralysed coal production at Talcher coalfields. One of the most prolific coal mining zones in the country, the Talcher coalfields produces 210,000 tonnes each day. It also serves as an important coal sourcing hub for power generators within Odisha and beyond.

MCL said, it is making the best of efforts to defuse the coal crisis and rescue the NTPC Kaniha plant from sinking into further crisis. The coal producer pointed out efforts are underway to divert coal from its Ib valley coalfields to feed the Kaniha super thermal power plant.

NTPC to seek shareholder nod to raise Rs 15K crore, hike borrowing limit

State-owned National Thermal Power Corporation will seek shareholders' approval to raise Rs 15,000 crore through issuance of bonds or debentures and to raise borrowing limit to Rs 2 trillion, next month.

The company will seek shareholders' nod through a special resolution to raise funds up to Rs 15,000 crore through issue of bonds/debentures on private placement basis in domestic market.

The funds raised will be used for capex, working capital and general corporate purposes, an NTPC notice for annual general meeting (AGM) said.

In addition to capital expenditure requirement, the company also needs to borrow to meet its working capital requirement which is partly proposed to be met through issuance of non-convertible bonds, it added.

NTPC will also seek shareholders' approval to increase borrowing limit of the company from Rs 1.5 lakh crore to Rs 2 trillion.

The next AGM is scheduled for August 2nt1, 2019.

The company said that as per estimates, on the basis of capital outlay envisaged, the proposed debt requirement of both ongoing projects and new projects up to 2022 will be about Rs 2 trillion, which will exceed paid up share capital, free reserves and securities premium of the company

India to have a National Electricity Discom, NTPC-Power Grid sign MoU

Heralding a major change in the power distribution sector of the country, two leading public sector utilities, NTPC Ltd and Power Grid Corporation of India, have formed a joint venture to set up a National Electricity Distribution Company.

This paves way for NTPC, a leading power generator, and Power Grid which owns India's largest power transmission network to get into consumer electricity supply business.

The move could also hint at another round of power distribution reforms such as separation of content and carriage business -- the infrastructure builder for power supply and the supplier to the consumer would be two separate companies. This would bring more competition in power distribution, with more than one supplier. The following has been suggested in the latest amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003 which is yet to be tabled in the parliament.

A statement by the spokesperson of the ministry of power said, "An agreement has been entered between Power Grid & NTPC on 21st June 2019 for formation of JV Company on 50:50 equity basis for setting up National Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (NEDCL). The main objective of JVC is to undertake the business for distribution of electricity in distribution circles in various States and Union Territories of India and other related activities."

This statement was also posted on social media by Power Grid.

The announcement comes at a time when the existing reform scheme UDAY has been declared as a failed scheme by several agencies. Launched in 2015, it aimed at turning around the state owned discoms financially and operationally. While the financial part was concluded with states taking over the losses of discoms and issuing bonds, operational front is facing challenges.

Loses of state-owned discoms grew by over 40 per cent to Rs 21,658 crore at the end of FY19. At the same time, the dues of discoms to power gencos stood at Rs 38,023 crore.