Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPP) are a series of ambitious power stations planned by the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. This would entail the creation of an additional capacity of at least 100,000 MW by 2022. Ultra Mega Power projects, each with a capacity of 4000 MW or above, are being developed with the aim of bridging this gap. The UMPPs are seen as an expansion of the MPP (Mega Power Projects) projects that the Government of India undertook in the 1990s, but met with limited success. The Ministry of Power, in association with the

Central Electricity Authority The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) was a body that managed and operated the electricity supply industry in England and Wales between 1 April 1955 and 31 December 1957. The CEA replaced the earlier British Electricity Authority (BEA) as a r ...

and

Power Finance Corporation Ltd. Power Finance Corporation Ltd. (P. F. C.) is an Indian Public Sector Undertakings in India, central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Power (India), Ministry of Power, Government of India. Established in 1986, it ...

, has launched an initiative for the development of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

-based UMPP's in India. These projects will be awarded to developers on the basis of competitive bidding. Based on supercritical technology, 16,000 MW of capacity has been contracted through the competitive bidding process for UMPPs. The average tariff for these projects is in the range of 2-3 per

kWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

which is much lower than the recent cost plus tariffs. The first UMPP, developed by

Tata Power Tata Power Company Limited is an Indian electric utility company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India and is part of the Tata Group. The core business of the company is to generate, transmit and distribute electricity. With an installed electri ...

Mundra Mundra is a census town and a headquarter of Mundra Taluka of Kutch district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Founded in about the 1640s, the town was an important mercantile centre and port throughout its history. Mundra Port is the largest pr ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

has been commissioned and contributes 4,000 MW in power to the Western grid.

Special purpose vehicles

Special purpose vehicles (SPV) have been set up as wholly owned subsidiaries of the

Power Finance Corporation Power Finance Corporation Ltd. (P. F. C.) is an Indian central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Power, Government of India. Established in 1986, it is the financial backbone of Indian power sector. PFC's net ...

for each UMPP that will be built. The SPV obtains various clearances, water linkage,

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

allocation (for domestic coal based projects) etc. for the project. The SPV also initiates action for land acquisition in the name of the SPV, selects the developer through a tariff based competitive bidding process and finally transfers the SPV to the identified developer along with the various clearances, tie ups, etc. The developer is then responsible to build–own–operate (BOO) these UMPP plants.

List of UMPPs

According to the

, 15 UMPPs are envisioned. As of July 2012, 12 SPVs had been formed. Currently, two UMPPs have been commissioned. The table below shows the status of the 12 UMPPs for which SPVs have been formed.

Operational costs

The project is being developed with the intention of providing power to consumers at minimum cost. Because of the huge size of these power plants, the cost of the electricity would be lower due to the

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...

. The plants are estimated to cost roughly 15,000 crores each to set up.Microsoft Word - MOP_UMPP.doc
/ref> The cost of generation per unit is estimated at under 2.
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References

{{reflist

External links

The Electricity Act, 2003

Official website of Power Finance Corporation detailing UMPP

Problems of UMP - an article in ''Businessworld''

Brief description of Ultra mega power projects

UMPP projects on SourceWatch
Coal-fired power stations in India Proposed coal-fired power stations Proposed power stations in India

Special purpose vehicles

List of UMPPs

Operational costs

See also

References

External links