Foundation stone for Ennore power plant to be laid on Sept 5

Chennai, Aug 26 (UNI) Construction works for the 1,000 MW power plant at Ennore in the city's Northern suburb would begin next week and the foundation stone for the plant would be laid on September 5.

Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Arcot N Veerasamy said Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde would attend the function.

The project comprised two 500-MW coal-based thermal plants and would be set up by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and the National Thermal Power Corporation.

The project would start producing its first power units by November 2010.

Speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of a conference on power sector organised by the CII here last evening, NTPC Chairman and Managing Director T Sankaralingam said the power plant would be built at a cost of about Rs 5,000 crore and it included a desalination component which would produce 200 million litres of freshwater a day.

The NTPC was also planning to add another 500 MW capacity to cut costs, he added.

About NTPC's plans on power generation, he said the NTPC was looking non-conventional energy sources apart from thermal power.

Apart from the 8,000 MW of hydroelectric capacity to be added in the next ten years, the NTPC was looking at non-conventional energy sources by setting up a few energy parks, each with a capacity of 200-250 MW.

''They will use a combination of non-conventional sources, including biomass, biofuels and wind'', Mr Sankaralingam said and added that this could include India's first offshore wind turbines to be located in shallow waters.

''This will be part of the 78,000-MW capacity addition being targetted during the 11th Plan''.

Earlier, a white paper prepared by the government-constituted task force on the inputs needed to achieve this sizeable target was released by Union Power Secretary Anil Razdan.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Razdan said power shortages should not be an impediment to India's booming economic growth.

UNI