National Thermal Power Corporation's (NTPC) plan to spend around Rs 9,600 crore to revive its old power plants might help revive the ailing power equipment sector as well. NTPC plans to improve the falling plant load factors (PLFs) of seven power plants that are more than 25 years old.

NTPC's Director-Technical AK Jha said the PSU major already has approvals for three of the power plants and will get them for some more. This is part of the plan to extend the life of three coal-based and four gas-based power plants. The total capacity of these plants is around 5,000 megawatts. The company had helped some non-NTPC power plants increase their PLFs.

In one case, a power plant with around 19 per cent PLF was revived to take its capacity to around 90 per cent, Jha said. He added around 70 per cent of the intended budget will go into equipment ordering. These orders will help the power equipment sector, which has been waiting for orders for a long time. The Chinese competition has ebbed after a duty of 21 per cent has been levied. But Indian power companies have not been ordering, claimed Amit Patil, a capital goods analyst at Angel Broking.