By IANS
New Delhi : In one of the largest-ever procurement plans for the energy sector, worth an estimated $5 billion, the government will soon ask global equipment makers to bid for supplying machinery to projects of state-owned power utility NTPC Ltd, a power ministry official said.
These would include at least eight supercritical boilers, which constitute the latest technology in power generation and are considered more energy efficient than the sub-critical plants. They are also entitled to carbon credits under the Kyoto protocol.
“The state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) is not the answer for meeting the country’s requirement of supercritical power generation equipment and so the government will soon float tenders for supply to NTPC’s proposed supercritical power projects,” Power Secretary Anil Razdan said Monday on the sidelines of a two-day conference organised by Independent Power Producers Association of India here.
“This well help in discovering a competitive price for supply of supercritical plant equipment, a new technology, to other power projects in the country,” the power secretary said.
BHEL has access to supercritical technology thanks to its business accords with global giants like Siemens and Alstom.
The company wanted to supply the first eight supercritical boilers to NTPC without bidding competitively for them. In return, BHEL said it would lower prices for subsequent contracts.
However, NTPC and BHEL failed to agree on pricing issues.
Following that, the matter was referred to a high-level committee headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.
The committee will decide whether orders for supply of the first eight supercritical boilers should be placed with BHEL or whether competitive bidding should be invited.