ANDHRA
PRADESH ELECTRICITY REGULATORY COMMISSION
Sri. K.Sreerama
Murthy, Member
Sri Surinder
Pal, Member
In re file No.E-357(B)
(In
the matter of Consent for proposed amendments to Power Purchase
Agreement)
M/s
Transmission Corporation of A. P. Limited … First Party
and
M/s
Gautami Power Pvt. Ltd,
Paigah House,
156-159,
Secunderabad – 500 003. … Second Party
The matter coming on for consideration of the Commission and the Commission on consideration passed the following
1. The former Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board, the predecessor of the First Party (herein after APTRANSCO) after having agreed to purchase power from the Second party (hereinafter, the Developer), developer of a combined cycle gas based power project, entered into Power Purchase Agreement (PPA for short) in March, 1997.
2. Subsequently,
after coming into existence in 1999 of this Commission, the APTRANSCO and the Developer entered
into an Amendment Agreement to amend the aforementioned PPA and submitted the
same to the Commission in December, 2001 for its consent.
3. The Commission critically examined
various issues including the demand projections, generation expansion plan of
APTRANSCO, the technical and financial parameters in respect of the projects,
the fuel options and their usage. The
Commission also conducted a public hearing on 19.12.2002 to ascertain the views
of all the stakeholders including general public.
As regards the
fuel, it was defined in the Amendment Agreement as follows:
Fuel: means Natural Gas, that is intended to be used as primary fuel, by one or
more units of the Project to generate power from the Project or in case of
unavailability of primary fuel, Naphtha or Low Sulphur
Heavy Stock and the like as alternate fuel.
During the public hearing, the Commission staff suggested the following modifications to the Amendment Agreement / PPA, among other things:
a) Fixed charges to be limited to the availability of gas.
b) If the Developer is directed to run the plant on alternate fuel by APTransco, the price of alternate fuel shall be limited to that of natural gas.
APTRANSCO responded as follows:
In view
of firm gas allocation from 80% to 100% PLF for these projects, fixed charges
will be paid as per PPA provisions.
Earlier, APTRANSC0 had stated that:
As per the indications given by GAIL, the
present projected availability by ONGC is about 8 to 9 MCMD of Natural Gas and
the current supply is about
7 MCMD. It is also
indicated that private agencies like CAIRN are expected to develop 3 to 4 MCMD
from 2004-05. Further, the explorations
being conducted by Reliance are yielding good results in the order of 18 MCMD
by 2004-05. Hence there is no difficulty
to meet the requirement of gas for this project.
Ministry of Petroleum, GOI issued gas linkage for this project on firm basis. GAIL, a Govt. of India enterprise, signed the Gas supply Agreement with the Company and it is therefore the responsibility of GOI and GAIL to supply gas to this project. They will honour the Agreements. However, generation with alternative fuel will be as decided by the Fuel Supply Committee and as per the merit order dispatch as approved by APERC.
APTRANSCO furnished the response of the Developer on this issue, as having stated vide letter dated 31.01.2003 as follows:
With the recent findings of additional gas by Reliance / Gujarat Firm, there is abundant reserves of Gas available in K.G. basin. Hence, the situation, as envisaged on this issue, will not arise.
APTRANSCO also held discussions with the Developer and proposed the following amendment to the PPA on the usage of alternate fuel.
“Developer to run plant on
alternate fuel if required by AP Transco due to non availability of gas, the
price of alternate fuel used shall be limited to the price of Natural gas”.
The Developer, in response, communicated the following in his letter
dated
(a) Projects have been already appraised by the financial institutions on the basis of the existing provisions of the amendments to the PPA. Alternative fuel is a pre-condition, without which the project would be unbankable.
(b) Government
of AP’s letter No. 3504 / Pr.I.1/96 dated
In the letter dated 29.10.2001 cited in sub-paragraph (b) above, Government of AP had stated the following at paragraph 3 (3):
“Regarding the definition of ‘fuel’
in the PPA (article 1.27) in view of the reliable reports of abundant
availability of natural gas in Godavari-Krishna basin and off-shore Kakinada,
the relevant clause may be retained in the present form, with a provision to
use any of the fuels mentioned in article 1.27 as alternate fuel, in case of unavailability
of natural gas which is the permitted fuel for the projects. The Government
also desire that no restrictions on use of alternate fuel be imposed in the PPA
which may affect the attitude of lenders with regard to financiability of the
project”.
In
response to the communication from the Commission, APTRANSCO in its letter
dated
4. Finally, the Commission agreed to grant its consent subject to certain modifications being incorporated in some of the clauses, and accordingly the amended PPA was signed on 18.06.2003.
5. While the
matter stood thus, the APTRANSCO filed a petition, O.P.No.24 / 2004, against
the Developer, seeking deletion of the provision for alternate fuel from the
definitions of ‘Fuel’ in the PPA, as amended.
The matter was posted for hearing on
6. While so,
APTRANSCO on
(a)
At
present GAIL is unable to supply the allocated quantities of Natural Gas to the
already existing Gas based Projects in A.P. and it is noted that GAIL may not
be in a position to supply the allocated Natural Gas to the upcoming Gas based
Projects as per the GSAs entered.
(b)
APTRANSCO
will have to pay full Fixed Charges once these upcoming Gas
based Projects are commissioned and are declared available even though GAIL
does not supply the required Gas as per linkage. The total commitment towards payment of Fixed
Charges without availing energy works out to about Rs.1020 crs. per annum (In
respect of four projects in all, including this project and similar projects of
M/s Vemagiri Power Generation Ltd., Bangalore, M/s Konaseema
EPS Oakwell Power Ltd., Hyderabad and M/s GVK
Industries Ltd, Hyderabad – Added by Commission for clarity).
(c)
The
above issue has been brought to the notice of Government of A.P. and Government
of
(d)
GoAP
further informed that:
(i) A
meeting was convened by the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister on
(ii)
After detailed
discussions it was agreed that MoP & NG along with ONGC would, working
backwards from June 2006, prepare list of actions to be taken to ensure
availability of extra gas to IPPs in AP from middle of 2006. Action plan and Quarterly progress in this
regard would be furnished to PMO.
(iii)
MoP & NG
would provide infrastructure support and take other necessary steps to
facilitate the early availability of gas from discovered fields of Reliance to
AP.
(iv)
MoP & NG
and GAIL would examine the issue regarding invoicing of full fixed charges for
transmitting lower quantity of gas to IPPs in AP and would revert to the State
Government with alternative suggestions.
(v)
Reliance have already entered into MOU with NTPC to supply gas in
first quarter of 2007 for the
The Government of A.P. informed that in view
of the concerns about unavailability of Natural Gas for the upcoming four Gas
based Power Projects, GoAP held negotiations with the developers of four Gas
based Power Projects for necessary amendments to the Power Purchase Agreements
to mitigate the “Fixed Cost” payment risk arising out of Gas unavailability
situation and the following agreement has been arrived.
(i)
Use of
alternate fuel will not be permitted before January 1, 2007.
(ii)
The
Project will be implemented in line with Scheduled Date of Completion (SDoC) as
per PPA.
(iii) The SDoC shall be extended day-to-day for any delay resulting from non-availability of Natural Gas before January 1, 2007.
7. APTransco
followed it up by submitting on
a)
Use of alternate fuel will not be permitted before
b)
The scheduled date of completion shall be extended day for
day for any delay arising from (i) non-availability
of Natural gas for commercial operation up to
c)
The developer would be obliged to supply committed incentive
energy up to
d)
The Company shall not be liable for any penalty under clause
3.6 “Disincentives” due to lower PLFs arising out of non-availability of
Natural gas for any period up to
e)
A new clause to be introduced as 5.2 (e) stipulating that
“in case of non-supply or partial supply of Natural gas up to 31-12-2006, the
monthly capacity charge shall be paid as per the Availability Declarations
based on Natural gas only”.
f)
Interest on the actual cost of interconnection facilities to
be payable to AP Transco in case the
project is not synchronised in terms of Clause 7.1 (g) will not be applicable
prior to 1st January 2007, in case of non-availability of Natural
gas.
g)
The occurrence and continuation of event stated in clause
9.2 (f) will not be treated as Company’s default up to 31-12-2006 if the said
failure is on account of unavailability of natural gas for a PLF of 60%.
8. The
amendments were scrutinized. The Commission noticed that the proposed
amendments are an improvement over the existing PPA in as much as these will
reduce the liability of payment of fixed charges by APTRANSCO because of
non-availability of gas till
9. The Commission in order to reduce the burden on the consumers at large who have to eventually shoulder the burden of the fixed costs is inclined to give consent to the proposed amendments, and grants the consent as sought for.
10. Before parting with the matter, the Commission also makes the following observations:
(i) The Commission would like APTRANSCO to keep the Commission apprised on a quarterly basis of the progress in regard to commissioning of the project; and
(ii) Having given assurances about adequate supply of natural gas during the entire duration of the PPA the Commission expects that the Developer shall make all reasonable efforts to ensure that uninterrupted supply of natural gas is available at least from 01.01.2007 onwards.
This order is corrected and signed this 14th day of December, 2004.
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Sd/- |
Sd/- |
Sd/- |
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SURINDER PAL |
K. SREERAMA MURTHY |
K. SWAMINATHAN |
|
Member |
Member |
Chairman |
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