Old thermal power plants in for a facelift

New Delhi, Jan 31 (UNI) Old and dark smoke spewing thermal power plants are going to be redesigned to lessen their potential to harm environment and to increase their energy efficiency.

The Centre has launched a new programme 'Partnership for Excellence' targeting 10,000 MW of poorly performing(PLF 60 per cent) state owned coal-fired power plants in which UN agency Global Environment Facility(GEF) will be playing a major role in financing it.

The project for modernising and renovating coalfired generating units approved by GEF was very important for countries like India which have large targets to reduce their carbon emissions.

It was for the first time that the agency was doing such a project in the country.

The GEF grant of of 45.4 million dollars will finance upgrading of selected old plants and set in place a process that will see that the reminder of the older, coal-fired plants were also rehabilitated and improved.

Mr Alok Kumar, Director in the Ministry of Power says India will to depend on coal as a source of electricity generation for a long time, so the country's energy policy lays special emphasis on improving efficiency of its thermal power plants.

The project will utilise GEF grant in conjunction with World Bank loans and Indian financing amounting to an additional US 299.7 million dollars.

At present thermal power plants producing up to 30,000 MW of electricity are in urgent need of renovation and modernisation.

Senior financial analyst working with the World Bank Rajesh Sinha says India has 65,000 MW of coal-fired capacity(58 per cent of total installed capacity) of which two thirds is owned by state government units and apart from a few exceptions, are in a bad shape.

So far, less than 20 per cent of 10th plan target of modernising plants of 10,4000 MW generation has been achieved.

Factors coming in the way of renovation and modernisation are prevailing energy shortages making plant outage for the work difficult, lack of regulatory incentives and poor financial condition of state sector units.

The objective of 'Partnership for Excellence' is improved energy efficiency and reduction in emission of environment polluting gases.

The project will reduce coal used per unit of electricity generated, increase electricity generation from unit and extend life of generation unit.

Under the project, a generating unit selected will be subjected to independent energy audit before designing of technical interventions for its upgradation.

An elaborate monitoring and evaluation network will be prepared.

The project will have two main components. Under the first, there will be a technical assistance of 7.4 million dollars of GEF grant which will be utilised for project preparation, financing energy audit and designing, financing studies on technical and regulatory approaches to energy efficiency and renovation and modernisation.

The second component of 118 million dollars of IBRD and 38 million dollars of GEF grant will directly finance several energy efficient, renovation and modernisation projects.

The GEF estbalished in 1991 helps developing countries fund projects and programmes that protect global environment. It supports projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, ozone layer and persistent organic pollutants.

GEF will be giving India 30 million dollars for biodiversity and 40 million dollars for climate change projects in the next four years.

UNI