VISAKHAPATNAM: The plant load factor (PLF) at NTPC Simhadri has gone up to 65% from the last fiscal’s 48% due to considerable increase in the demand for electricity. NTPC Simhadri CGM Diwakar Kaushik said the PLF, which is the ratio between the actual energy generated by a plant to the maximum possible energy that can be generated for a duration of an entire year, at the plant will reach 70% next year.
“As coal import, which was suspended due to Covid will resume, there will be no shortage of the commodity. The NTPC is set to get two lakh metric tonnes of coal from Indonesia in two months,” he told media persons here on Monday.
On the green measures taken by the NTPC, he said the 25 MW solar power plant launched recently was successfully connected to the southern grid even as planning was underway to increase the solar power production by setting up another 15 MW floating solar plant. The total installed capacity of the Simhadri plant is 2025 MW.
Meanwhile, the Simhadri plant has awarded the pilot project of ‘standalone fuel-cell based 50 kW micro-grid with hydrogen production using electrolyser’ to Bloom Energy India-Bangalore. This will be India’s first green hydrogen-based energy storage project. Kaushik said NTPC Simhadri has spent Rs 938 crore on various equipment/system to mitigate pollution during operation of its 4 units.