HYDERABAD: It may take several months for restoration of four of the six units of the hydro electric power station on Krishna river bank at Srisailam, which were damaged in the ravaging fire that broke out on the night of August 20, killing nine employees. “If the turbines and generators are damaged, it will take time as they have to be imported from Japan,” TS Transco and Genco Managing Director Devulapalli Prabhakar Rao told Express. Two units are in good condition as they have not suffered any damage and power generation could be resumed in the next 15 days.
“According to our preliminary assessment, the first and second units are in good condition. We are planning to restart power generation in the next 15 days,” he said. “The officials are still assessing the condition of the four badly-damaged units. The delay in assessment is due to the heat in the plant. There is still heat in the underground plant and the employees are unable to go to some units even after four days. We will come to know about the condition of these four units by Tuesday.”
“Once the assessment is completed, we will come to know whether there is any need to import equipment or we can repair them locally. If the repairs are done with locally available materials, then the power generation may start in the four units within a month. If there is a need to import Hitachi equipment, it would take some months to restore the power generation,” a Genco official said.
With the fire mishap resulting in loss of around 10 million units of hydel power in Srisailam, the hydel power generation in the State dropped to 21 million units on Sunday. The hydel power generation touched a maximum of 28.9 million units on August 20. At present, the hydel power is being generated at Nagarjuna Sagar and Jurala. “The power generation at NSP on Tuesday was around 750 MW,” sources said.