Union Power Secretary Monitors Position at Thermal Power Plants

Secretary, Union Ministry of Power, Shri Alok Kumar, reviewed the report of the Core Management Team (CMT) which comprises of representatives from Ministry of Power (MOP), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Coal India Limited (CIL) and Railways to ensure daily close monitoring of coal stock position at thermal power plants (TPPs).

During the meeting, the following has emerged that will ease out the coal stock position and will ensure uninterrupted power supply:

• The regulation of the coal to the power plants having more than 15 days’ stock, would free up around 1.77 lakh tone of coal from 26 stations. This coal has been redistributed to the plants having super critical and critical coal stocks at power plants.
• Sourcing of coal from captive coal mine of Odisha Coal & Power Limited (OCPL) for NTPC Daralipali (2 x 800 MW). The second Unit of NTPC Daralipali will achieve Commercial Operation from 00:00 hrs of 1^st Sept 2021 and thus additional 800 MW generation would be added in the total fleet.
• The Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) would be clearing dues to the tune of Rs.1200 crs to the different CIL subsidiaries within a week, which will augment the coal supply to different plants of DVC. This would ramp up the power generation from DVC plants from the present level of 61% to a PLF of 90%.
• The 1000 MW Kudankulam nuclear power station would be back on bar before 02^nd September,2021 and replace some portion of coal generation, thereby reducing pressure on coal requirements.
• Around 6000 MW capacity of thermal power plants at Western coast at Mundra designed on imported coal have around 30 days of coal stock and are not supplying power due to PPA related issues. A meeting is being taken tomorrow by Ministry of Power to resolve the issues, so that the power from these units can contribute to the overall generation to ease pressure on domestic coal requirements.
• Nevyeli Lignite Corporation (NLC) India has confirmed that the Lignite production from its mines at Neyveli is going on very well and one 500 MW unit at Neyveli which was under shut down now shall be back in service from 1st Sept,2021 onwards and NLCIL will be ready to generate more than 90% of its capacity.  One more unit of 250 MW which is currently under annual overhauling will be ready to be synchronized by 10th of Sept 2021 after which all units will be available for generation achieving about 92% PLF. The current production of Lignite from NLC mines is to the tune of 85000 T/day and it can further augment its production as per requirements.
• NLC will increase the production of coal from its Talabira coal mines at ODISHA, which can be supplied to the willing Gencos. Similarly all captive coal mines of State & Central Gencos have been advised to ramp up their production to augment coal stocks at their end use plants.

The CMT is closely monitoring the coal stocks on daily basis and ensuring follow up actions with CIL, Railways to improve the coal supply to power plants.