Despite its long presence in the sector, the group is wary about following the current trends in the power business – employing supercritical equipment. “We are not going supercritical for our baseline projects. By using supercritical all that we save is two per cent on coal consumption. But in my view that is not worth the expenditure.” He goes on add that for the merchant capacities coming up post 2012 supercritical equipment is definitely an option.

Though the norm in the Indian power industry is to hire operations and maintenance contractors to run power plants, Essar has chosen the in-house team route to manage and operate its state-of-the-art turbines, generators and auxiliaries. “We have a team that is a good combination of experience and fresh talent. So we find it a good option to put them through a rigorous training for customised to plant requirements,” says Adil Mallaya the group head for human resources. “In order to enhance their skills, we have also tied up with BITS Pilani for a distance learning programme,” he adds.

“What also works in Essar Power’s favour is our experience of over a decade in project conception and commissioning, including an EPC capability to build turnkey power plants. Our standards of plant operation and maintenance are on a par with the world’s best. Our plant availability is over 96 per cent and a plant load factor of over 85 per cent,” adds Suresh.

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