OREANDA-NEWS. June 19, 2012. Essar Energy plc [LSE: ESSR], the India-focused integrated energy company, today announced that it has commenced commercial operations at the 600 megawatt (MW) unit 2 of its 1,200MW Salaya I power project.

This follows the commencement in April of commercial operations at Salaya I, unit 1, also 600MW, and means the entire project has now been fully commissioned. This takes Essar Energy’s total installed operational generation capacity to 2,800MW.

Salaya I, in Gujarat state, is Essar Energy’s first coal fired power project and has been built at a total investment cost of USD 1.1 billion. Most of the power produced will be sold to the Gujarat state electricity utility, GUVNL, under a long term contract.

Salaya I is one of three power projects due to be commissioned by Essar Energy in 2012, the others being the 1,200MW Mahan I project and the 510MW Vadinar P2 project. Together these three projects will add 2,910MW of capacity and will take Essar Energy’s total installed capacity to 4,510MW.

Naresh Nayyar, the chief executive officer of Essar Energy, said: “We are making good progress in completing our construction projects and in our transformation to an operational energy company. The commissioning of the second unit at Salaya is welcome news and represents further evidence of this progress.”