Long power cuts stare state residents in face
Five thermal units go out of operation for repairs
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Panipat, May 1
The state is likely to face long power cuts this summer as five thermal units of 1,860 Megawatts (MW) capacity are under forced outage for the next two months. Both units of 300 MW each at Yamunanagar thermal plant are suffering from a major breakdown after vibrations were noticed in the turbines.

The turbine rotor of unit no. 2 had got bent on 25 September last year after water entered the turbine. Unit no. 1 had also faced turbine vibration and is now on forced outage since March 31.The turbine blades were found to be broken.

The 600 MW unit no. 1 of Khedar (Hisar) thermal plant had also been shut down on April 28 after vibrations were noticed in the turbine. Sources in the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Ltd (HPGCL) said the authorities at Khedar thermal plant had sought 40 days’ work permit to rectify the defect.

To make things worse, the newly constructed units at Jhajjar with 660 MW capacity each are also not able to generate any power due to inadequate coal allocation. Coal India has reportedly refused to sign coal agreements with units commissioned after December 31.

The first 660 MW unit was synchronised on January 11 and declared on commercial operation from March 29 after the trial run. The second unit was synchronised in the last week of March. But due to the inadequate coal supplies, the Jhajjar power plant could generate power for only nine days since the synchronisation of the first unit on January 11.

The sources said the state would be facing a minimum shortage of 288 lakh units daily on account of forced outage of three units.

Perturbed by the situation, the All-India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has already shot off a letter to the Union Power Ministry claiming that it was due to the fault in the design of these turbines that frequent outages were occurring. These turbines were supplied by Reliance Infra and were now causing huge losses to the utilities in terms of loss of power generation and the amount which is being spent on getting these repaired.

The federation demanded that a joint team of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) should be constituted to investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, the Central Electricity Authority has set a target of 226267 million units for HPGCL for the financial year 2012-13, which, according to the sources, is unlikely to be achieved. The target of Panipat, Khedar and Yamunanagar thermal plants is 9,700 MU, 7,041 MU and 3,961 MU, respectively.