NTPC's Kaniha power plant overcomes coal crisis

Angul, Aug 12 (UNI) The 3,000-Megawatt Talcher Super Thermal Power plant owned by the NTPC at Kaniha has overcome the resources crunch with the augmentation of coal supply from the Mahanadi Coalfield Ltd (MCL).

The plant recently had been plague with coal shortage. But the situation has now improved with steady supply of coal from MCL and stockpile went up to about 3.5 lakh tonne.

According to an NTPC official, the plant was now getting five rakes of coal daily from Talcher and Ib valley coalfield besides some 35,000 to 38,000 tonne coal from linked Lingaraj mine at Talcher.

The present stock could meet the demand of the power plant for a week and efforts were on to create a stock to run the plant for ten days in case of any emergency..

The coal requirement of NTPC plant has come down to 47,000 tonne from normal 55,000 tonne following the shutdown of unit No 3 for a fortnight now due to annual maintenance. The unit would be soon put on steam before another 500 MW unit shut down for maintenance.

At present out of six 500 MW units, five units are running with cent per cent plant load factor helping the NTPC management to improve its stock position.

On the other hand, the public sector NALCO is planning to turn around another 120 MW unit shut down in last month due to coal shortage. The coal stock at Nalco Power plant has gone up from 10,000 tonne to 50,000 tonne.

The company had to shut down its running sixth unit for coal crisis and went for power import from GRIDCO on much higher rate to maintain production in the smelter plant.

UNI