Power supply affected in Punjab, Haryana

Patiala, Aug 4 (UNI) The power supply was today affected in most parts of Punjab and Haryana, after all units of the Ropar and Bathinda Thermal plants were forced to shut down due to coal feeding problems and bad weather conditions, sources said.

During incessant rains, the coal slurry fed to the units results in the running of units at fewer loads which eventually results in loss of generation or tripping of units on flame failure, sources disclosed.

According to an official spokesman, the power failure occurred due to problems in the power supply from Chemra Hydel and BBMB. He said officials and technicians have been working to rectify the problem and the power is likely to be restored in Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar within sometime.

Yesterday, the unit in RTP tripped after the boiler furnace came under pressure and exploded due to sudden burning of unburnt fuel in the boiler. At that time, the unit was running at 120 MW load due to coal feeding problems when the oil support was taken, resulting in the burning of unburnt coal in one corner of the boiler.

The furnace came under pressure resulting in exploding of the boiler.

This morning, all the rest five 210 MW thermal units were running at a load ranging between 90 MW to 160 MW due to coal feeding problems. Unit No 4 tripped this morning again but was revived subsequently.

For the last one week, the shift engineers have been working in odd conditions to maintain the load and save the units from tripping.

The generation at the Ropar thermal plant on Thursday was 257.6 lakh units while on Wednesday, it was 239.8 lakh units against the normal generation of 302.4 lakh units.

The loss of 60 lakh units daily is due to coal feeding problems.

This is besides the loss of 50 lakh units from unit No 1 . The Ropar Thermal Plant may be forced to shut down two out of six units due to coal feeding problems resulting in daily loss of 100 lakh units in the state.

UNI