So how is NTPC planning to achieve its aim?
Change managementThe first thing is to condition the minds of people. The people we have are of great quality, but some of them are programmed that they cannot go beyond a certain limit. This is one of the major issues with the NTPC board. The idea was to make them look at the larger picture. Handling the machine is the easiest part, handling people is most difficult.
Fuel security
NTPC is over dependent on Coal India. We almost thought that we will meet our needs. The PSU has been doing so in the past, but suddenly we were far short in terms of production capacity and our requirement. We lost some generation last year but I think we have learnt our lessons. We have totally redefined our fuel security policy. We are going to broadbase our sources of supply now. We keep talking of maximising the domestic coal supply and balance the short falls by approaching the international market. We are concentrating more on how quickly we can acquire the coal that we can use. We plan to have long term contracts with all the big coal companies and increase our share holding in good mines abroad. But we don’t want to get into mining. The beta factor gets significantly bad if your mining is part of the business, we would like to mitigate that.
Risk based Management System
We have taken this from America and it is an ongoing programme with the USAID. They have given us the resources and exposure. We have taken this system and modified it as per our conditions and our business processes. We have integrated this with our ERP(number of working hours, how many megawatts lost) where the entire overhaul is processed automatically. This system is indicated in OPI (Overhaul Preparedness Index), which is an in-house innovation), which is basically an intensive engagement exercise for planning for overhauls. The whole process is integrated and this is being done for the first time in the world and no one has this technology in place till now. We are increasingly becoming comparable to the international standards of plant operations.
We are trying to have three-pronged action. First try to bring in technology by which we increase the efficiency of the existing plants. Many countries are spending money on carbon capture. But we believe that carbon technology is not a good thing to happen when the technology is not in shelf. What we have is the technology to revamp an older unit to get higher efficiency. We want to spend money there now. Third is that we are seriously thinking about solar energy. Our board has already approved a solar plant for 300 MW. In the next five years, we should have a portfolio of 4000-5000 MW of power from the solar. All this will grow when we have the commercial signal. We have signed a few Memorandums of Understanding and if all goes well we will have 3000 MW wind energy in two to three years. We are also developing integrated coal gas-based power technology which should be operational by 2020.
Road Ahead
NPTC will be focusing more on capacity growth and we are planning to touch 75,000 MW by 2017. The corporate plan is being made till 2032. Every five years we make a corporate plan for 15 years. We want to be fully fuel secure at the same time surplus. The volumes being too high we definitely have to tap maximum fuel. Third, we want to be involved in technology, a bit ahead of the innovation curve. For that we have opened our own state- of-the- art Research and Design unit and the board has approved one per cent of the company profit every year for R&D. We want to aggressively get into electric storage technology where we are going to have huge aluminium batteries.
Growth
In terms of generation it is 20 per cent and in terms of capacity growth it will be 14-15 per cent CGR (Capacity Growth Rate) by 2032. We are expecting 98 per cent CGR which means the rate of addition is very high. We are looking at 1, 66,000 crores for 75,000 units.
