Panipat, January 16
Tau Devi Lal Thermal Power Station (TDLTPS) here with capacity of 860 MW, has been facing problem in production due to the supply of poor quality coal to its four old units.
The coal received at the thermal station is of 4000 Kcal/Kg calorific value against the required value of 4800 Kcal/Kg. The use of such coal has been causing excess consumption of coal, revealed official sources.
Supply of poor quality coal has been damaging parts of four old units of each 110 MW capacity costing crores to the station. The two old units, which were installed in 1979 and 1980 and have outlived their life, the sources added.
The thermal station located 8 Km west of Panipat has six generating units including the four each of 110 MW capacity and two units each of 210 MW capacity.
Sources added that the thermal station had an agreement with Coal India for the supply of coal to the units. The agencies of Coal India including CLL, BCCL, WLL and NCC have been supplying coal from Bihar and West Bengal coal mines.
One old unit of 110MW capacity remained non-functional for over a year and was made operational in October last year. In addition to it, non-functioning of old units for a few hours due to technical faults had become a routine. This week two old units of the plant also remained non-functional due to technical failure, sources added.
Admitting that the thermal plant had failed to achieve the expected performance from four old units following the use of poor quality coal, the officials of the thermal plants also recently submitted an internal report to senior officials and the government. The officials had mentioned that in 110 MW unit-1 major replacements of pressure parts, like complete replacement of economiser, water wall tubes, burner panels etc were required to be made. Officials had added that the thermal station spent crores on the repair of old units.
Officials had also mentioned that there is no such
standby ID fan in two old units of 110 MW capacity (unit 1 and unit 2) as per original design and as such outage of any of the I.D fan leads to the closure of the respective unit.
Chief Engineer of the (O and M wing), M.M Bindlish, said that the plant was getting supply from Coal India. Agreeing that inferior coal could affect the production of power, Mr Bindlish said that the plant was using the coal which was being supplied to it.
