Power station shuts
as Chinese team fails to correct snag

YOGINDRA MOHAN
Patiala

The eyebrows are being raised about the quality of Chinese equipment and after sales service as 300 mega watt (MW) unit No. 2 at Yamunanagar thermal power station in Haryana is under forced shut down. Padamjit Singh, Chairman of All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF), said that according to information received under RTI, the Unit 2 is under forced shut down since September 25 last year due to high eccentricity and vibration at turbine bearing No. 1. The unit was commissioned on June 24, 2008 and has a total running hours of 24180 only. The daily generation loss of 72 lakh units is worth Rs 2 crore for Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL).

After the closure of unit on September 25 two Chinese engineers stationed at Khedar thermal visited site on September 28 and 29 but could not solve the problem. He said the HPGCL sent urgent message on October 1 to Reliance Infra and Shanghai Electric Company for sending experts to rectify the problem at the earliest as the unit is under forced shut down. The visit of Chinese engineers was again stressed on urgent basis to avoid it becoming impediments in final taking over and requested for experts latest by October 12. The RTI documents received read: “Top management of HPGCL has taken a very strong note of situation that SEC is not able to quickly respond under SOS conditions to mobilise the support.”