NTPC-Kahalgaon’s super thermal power plant is going digital.

The station, which has a power generation capacity of 2340MW, has started replacing its 25-year-old Russian technology with a fully digital system. 

Group general manager of NTPC-Kahalgaon, N.N. Mishra said unit 2 of the plant had been renovated successfully. 
The process took only 35 days (from January 18 to February 21). 

The plant has four units , each having a power generation capacity of 410MW. 

“NTPC will renovate the other three units in one-and-a-half years,” he said. “Semans, a software company in Gurgaon, is helping us install the new system.”

Stage I of the project was commissioned in 1995 with a Russian technology operated by a software which was difficult to use and time consuming.

“We had many difficulties,” said Mishra. “If the unit shut down suddenly because of some technical problem, engineers and experts had to do a lot of brainstorming to find the reason behind it. This resulted in loss of time.”

Echoing him, A.D.K. Gupta, the assistant general manager (operations), recalled how they faced problems in replacing parts of the machinery at the plant because most of them were only available in Russia. 

“Procuring the required equipment became very difficult,” he said. 

Several employees in the control tower attested to Gupta’s point of view. 

“Earlier, we faced a lot of problems because of the old system,” said a worker at the plant. 

“In case of breakdowns, we had to work continuously for several nights and days without rest. But now, the system has improved and become more user-friendly.” 

“Under the digital system, we can control and maintain the system ourselves,” said Mishra. 

He added that the new system could easily rectify and analyse faults in a short time. Besides, it required less manpower and time. 

Kahalgaon Super Thermal Power Station is located in Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district of Bihar. 

The power plant is one of the coal based power plants of NTPC. 

The coal for the power plant is sourced from Rajmahal coalfield of Eastern Coalfields Limited.