BHUBANESWAR: Much to the relief of the State, the second unit of the NTPC’s Darlipali supercritical power station in Sundargarh district has come back to the grid on Thursday. The second unit of the NTPC plant with a capacity of 800 MW went off the grid in the third week of April after developing technical snags, worsening the power crisis in the State which was reeling from an intense heat wave.
The NTPC unit became critical when the fourth unit of OPGC’s Ib Thermal Power Station (660 MW) in Jharsuguda district was under annual maintenance. This triggered a crisis with the State experiencing a shortage of about 840 MW power. The State has a share of 440 MW from the Darlipali unit.
With blistering heat sweeping across the State, the peak demand went up to 5,840 MW at 11.22 pm on Wednesday. With an average demand of 5,275 MW the State is managing the requirement from Vedanta and GMR which have been supplying around 500 MW and 322 MW respectively on a daily basis.