Bulk tendering of supercritical units: No dice, says CEA to Cethar

Cethar Vessels' arguments seem to have had no effect on the CEA, which remains adamant about enforcing the criteria notified earlier for the bulk tendering of supercritical power plants to be commissioned by NTPC and DVC over the next few years. Presently, bidding requirements for boilers include that a significant stake be held by a qualified manufacturer in the bidding company.

 -A 'qualified' supercritical boiler manufacturer means a company that has experience of having designed, engineered, manufactured or procured, erected or supervised erection of, commissioned or supervised commissioning of at least one supercritical boiler of 500 MW or above capacity, which should have been in successful operations for at least one year.

 The Authority has given the following arguments in favor of a status quo in qualifying requirements:

•  The thrust of the qualifying requirements has been to source equipment only from manufacturers with proven capability and past experience in supplying such equipment in succesful operations.
•  Equity participation by qualified boiler manufacturer, through subsidiary or JV route, has been insisted to ensure the fulfillment of contract and also to ensure long-term commitment in setting up indigenous manufacturing facilities due to its large financial stake in the subsidiary/JV.
•  The collaboration and technology transfer route, without equity participation of collaborator, has been allowed only to the Indian manufacturers that have proven and demonstrated capacity of executing projects with the desired specifications, and only need additional support for supercritical technology.
•  The objective of these qualifying requirements is to assess the capability and resources of a bidder based on past record.
•  The suggestions of Cethar Vessels for amendments to the qualifying requirements would not meet the desired objectives of the qualifying requirements
• Still bitter about being unable to convince NTPC of its conformity to the existing guidelines specified for the supply of boilers to a slew of supercritical units to be installed in the country, Cethar Vessels has now asked the CEA to modify the criteria to suit the private firm. While the ship has already sailed for the 660 MW power plants to be executed by NTPC and DVC, Cethar Vessels hopes to at least make a dash for the forthcoming 800 MW tender.  The company has made the following assertions in its recent missive: 
• Supercritical and subcritical boilers are similar in respect of all the systems, and only the evaporator is different.
•  Collaborator route should be allowed for fully owned Indian companies, irrespective of their past experience, as against the present requirement of a JV.
•  The CEA should, thus, modify the qualifying requirements so as to qualify all Indian boiler manufacturers with manufacturing facilities of 5000 MW+ per annum capacity, that have access to supercritical technology through a collaborator that has designed and commissioned a 350 MW supercritical and a 500 MW subcritical boiler.