Regulation of coal to power plants having more than 15 days’ stock would free up around 1.77 lakh tonne of coal from 26 stations, as per the Power Ministry.

The observation was made during a review meeting by the Power Secretary Alok Kumar on Sunday. He reviewed the report of the core management team comprising representatives from Central Electricity Authority, Coal India Limited (CIL) and the Railways to ensure daily close monitoring of coal stock position at thermal power plants.

Additional power generation

A release said in order to ensure uninterrupted supply of power, sourcing of coal from captive coal mine of Odisha Coal & Power Limited (OCPL) for NTPC Daralipali will achieve commercial operation from September 1, and thus an additional 800 MW generation would be added in the total fleet.

“The Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) would be clearing dues to the tune of ₹1,200 crores to different CIL subsidiaries within a week, which will augment coal supply to different plants of DVC. This would ramp up the power generation from DVC plants from the present level of 61 per cent to a plant load factor (PLF) of 90 per cent,” the release added.

Also see: Government to form Core Management Team to monitor coal supply position

In addition, the 1000 MW Kudankulam nuclear power station would be back on bar before September 2 and replace some portion of coal generation, thereby reducing pressure on coal requirements. Also, thermal power plants of around 6000 MW capacity on thewestern coast at Mundra have around 30 days of coal stock and are not supplying power due to power purchase agreement-related issues.

The release said that a meeting will be taken up by the Power Ministry on Monday to resolve the issues, so that the power from these units can contribute to the overall generation to ease pressure on domestic coal requirements.

Neyveli Lignite Corporation

As per the release, Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) India confirmed that lignite production from its mines at Neyveli is proceeding well. One 500 MW unit at Neyveli which was shut down shall be back in service from September 1 and NLC will be ready to generate more than 90 per cent of its capacity. It said that another unit of 250 MW, currently under annual overhauling, will be ready to be synchronized by September 10.After this, all units will be available for generation, achieving about 92 per cent PLF. The current production of Lignite from NLC mines is to the tune of 85000 T/day, and it can further augment production as per requirements.

Meanwhile, NLC will increase the production of coal from its Talabira coal mines at Odisha, which can be supplied to willing generation companies (Gencos). Similarly all captive coal mines of State and Central Gencos have been advised to ramp up their production to augment coal stocks at their end use plants, according to the release.

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