Consultants to set right power plants' anomalies

Maintenance yet to be done at RTPS units

“We have appointed three consultants to help us improve the system. One of them is A B Balakrishna, former Director Technical of the KPCL. The other two are experts from the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and New Delhi-based Feed Back Venture (FBV),” KPCL Chairman S M Jamdhar told Deccan Herald.

Balakrishna had ensured successful functioning of the thermal power station for more than seven years. “He has already begun his work and we are sure of the results at the earliest,” Jamdhar said.

The KPCL had witnessed crises since the start of the monsoon at the State’s first thermal power plant, the RTPS, due to damage of its first three units. The eight units of the RTPS with a total capacity of 1720 mega watt have been over burdened since the last two years and not sufficient time was given for maintenance that normally required 15 days.
“The plant load factor (PLF) of these three units was 93 per cent just a couple of years ago and was even awarded national award for efficient functioning. They are frequently going defunct now,” a KPCL source said.

Experts attributed the failure of the power units to the use of different grades of coal. “Earlier, only washed coal was used to generate power. However, now the use of washed coal has been reduced in the recent days,” said an official source.
Boulders being mixed into the coal while transporting was another problem, which is now being resolved, Jamdhar said.

The extra pressure on the thermal plants follows the inconsistency in monsoon around the catchment areas of hydel reserves like Linganamakki, Supa and Varahi, where the inflow has been restricted to just 51 per cent.

This has resulted in a scarcity of 1,000 mega watt of power, shooting up the demand-supply ratio.The consumption, as per Saturday’s figure, has touched 115 million units—a difference of 25 million units when compared to previous year’s statistics.