NTPC’s Simhadri Super Thermal Power Station, Parawada, a 2000-MW capacity power generation plant, has been crippled by coal crisis, forcing it to limit power generation to 1050 MW. The management has shut down one of its four units, and is generating power with minimum technical load from the other three units.
In an agreement with Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, the railways transports coal to the Simhadri Super Thermal Power Station. This year, the Simhadri station did not get sufficient coal for various reasons to generate power to its optimum capacity. It has an installed capacity of 2000 MW (4x500 MW) and is capable of generating 48 million units a day. The coal required for this is about 35,000 MT (28,000 MT of domestic coal and 7,000 MT imported coal), amounting to 10 rakes of coal a day. The Simhadri station started using the imported coal to make up for the shortfall in domestic coal and also to maintain required coal quality for boiler firing.
However, due to lack of rakes to transport the coal from MCL, the Simhadri station had received less quantity of coal than its requirement. Since January this year, one of the four units was shut down thrice due to the coal shortage.
Last month, the station received a total of coal about 7.39 lakh metric tonnes. Due to the poor supply of coal all through the current month all the four units were operating at technically minimum level of around 350 MW each and the recent Phailin cyclone made things worse.
The railway track in Odisha went haywire and it is expected to be restored shortly.At present the station is generating about 1,050 MW power with the available coal stock. The power generation is being regulated depending on arrival of the coal, the management said in an official release.