Expect improvement in power consumption in FY18: NTPC

The government has approved the extension of Mega Power Policy on Friday, March 31, 2017.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Gurdeep Singh, CMD of Natinoal Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), spoke about the latest happenings in his company and sector.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.

Anuj: What are your thoughts on the Mega Power Policy extension and of course on power in general, how is FY18 shaping up?

A: We have achieved 50,000 gigawatt on March 31. This is a very big step towards the capacity addition and making the power available so that we can reach the target of 24*7 affordable and reliable power for all.

Last year has been very significant for us. We had been able to perform in different areas whether it is a cost reduction and specially the benefits of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY).

We had been able to have our 100 percent realisation from the distribution companies (DISCOMs) and in fact on the coal side, the fuel side, which is the main part, we had been able to reduce 5.5 percent the coal consumption whereas we have generated 8 billion more units. So this is 5.5 percent when I am saying is the per unit coal consumption and that has helped to curtail the cost of the power to the discoms and in turn making them more viable and that was in addition to the financial terms. This was one of the main objective of the UDAY scheme to bring the efficiency into the system.

Latha: Are you seeing any of the companies which are looking for power purchase agreements (PPAs) now better off at all?

A: The mega power policy will definitely help these 31 projects because the timeline has been extended by 60 months. So definitely it should help.

Latha: Is anyone giving PPAs? We have not heard a lot of PPA announcements from discoms.

A: As we are going forward, there was an increase in the consumption in the last year of about 6.5 percent and going forward if the power consumption is increasing, there will be more and more requirement in the grid,. So whatever is the capacity we are having, slowly it will find place in the consumption side.

More to come...