The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) on Wednesday deferred a decision on Tata Power’s petition seeking permission to hike tariff for the Mundra ultra mega power project to reflect the change in the Indonesian coal price following the recent change in that country’s mining law.
The project developer was asked by the commission to go back and take recourse to the dispute resolution provisions of the power purchase agreement (PPA) before seeking relief from the CERC. ?The petitioner (Tata Power) has been asked to take action under the dispute resolution provisions of the PPA,? Rajiv Bansal, secretary, CERC, told FE. The regulator decided on this course after a dispute arose over whether Tata Power had complied with the PPA provisions.
While the developer insisted that it did comply with the formality, power buyers like Punjab and Gujarat disputed Tata Power’s submission. The CERC heard Adani Power’s petition separately on the issue of maintainability. The developer has
sought regulatory permission to revise tariff for its Mundra project.
The respondents, Gujarat and Haryana, have been asked to reply to the petition within three weeks.
Adani will get one week to file its rejoinder to the respondents’ replies.
Indonesia is most suitably located to export coal to India. That is the reason several Indian power companies have acquired coal assets or tied up long-term coal supplies from Indonesia. But the Indonesian government’s recent
move to change its mining law to bring coal price in line with the international market has sent fuel cost calculations of several power project developers haywire.
About 15,000-mw capacity based on Indonesian coal is facing the prospect of default on coal supply commitment due to developers’ inability to pass on increase in fuel cost to discoms.
