Less thermal generation due to coal problems –CEA
Punjab Newsline Network
Thursday, 20 October 2011
NEW DELHI: The generation from the coal based plants in country during September’11 was less as compared with the program whereas generation from hydro power plants during the month achieved an impressive growth rate.

Central Electricity Authority in its monthly report has attributed less generation from thermal plants to coal shortages, availability of poor/wet coal, delay in stabilization of some new units and forced outages. The generation from hydro power plants for the period April’11– September’11 has achieved a remarkable double digit growth rate of 22.59% as compared to 7.80% achieved during the corresponding period last year.

The planned thermal generation during month was 55370 million units whereas the actual generation was 49261 million units which is 88.9% of programmed. The hydro generation was 17726million units against planned 12747 million units due to increased inflows. The gross monthly generation of the country during the month was 99.06% of the program for the month.

During the month of September’11, coal requirement of 31.5 Million tons (MT) was estimated. However only 24.9 MT of coal was made available to the thermal power station. As on September 30, 31 thermal power stations had critical stock including 21 stations with super critical stock i.e. stock for less than 4 days.
Eight thermal power stations with an aggregate installed capacity of 5,555 MW, registered a plant load factor (PLF) of more than 90% during the month. These projects include Sipat STPS (1660 MW) - 101.37% PLF and Torangallu TPS (260 MW) - 100.64% PLF.

Coal imports up to September have already hit almost 58 percent of their target for the financial year, with power utilities having imported 23 MT of coal during the first half of the year. Out of the 25 power firms that are due to receive imported coal in the current fiscal, to mitigate the debilitating shortage of domestic coal for power generation, as many as 7 companies are still to start receiving supplies.

Haryana has received 0.877 Mt of imported coal which is 121 % of target on pro rata basis. The unit 2 of Khedar thermal plant produced 210 million units less due to stabilization problems in first six months. The unit was synchronized in October last. However first unit produced more generation than the target fixed by CEA. The target was 1114 million units and unit generated 1354 million units.