NEW DELHI: In a bid to cut emissions, country’s largest power producer, NTPC lined up investments worth Rs 5000 crore and has decided to replace its over 25 year old power plants totalling 11 GW capacity in the next five years.
“The NTPC board has taken an in-principle decision in its informal board meeting to replace its 11,000 MW old power plants which are over 25 years old in next five years,” Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.
Stressing on that these firms should not start from scratch for getting clearance for old machines getting replaced with new more energy efficient ones with far lower emissions meeting global standards, Goyal said that, he would ask the Environment Ministry to give automatic clearance to these new plants.
The minister has earlier on many occasions made a case for installing new energy efficient plants with lower emission and not retrofitting the existing plants. NTPC’s Rs 13,000-crore Darlipali plant in Odisha’s Sundargarh district is also set to be commissioned within a year.
“The first unit of Darlipalli plant with 800 MW capacity is expected to be commissioned by February 2018 and production will commence in August,” said Arvind Kumar, regional executive director of NTPC (East-II) .
About the use of digital mode for making bill payment of power utilities, Goyal said that it has been decided not to levy any charge for using digital means for making power utility payments except in the case of credit cards.
As many as 16,000 households in about 800 inaccessible villages in India will also be provided a 300 KW Solar panel, 8-hour battery backup, 5 LED bulbs, an energy efficient ceiling fan and a solar power based mobile phone charging socket, all free of cost, said the minister.