Angul, Sept. 18: The National Thermal Power Corporation’s 460MW Talcher Thermal Power Station will be forced to reduce its output shortly owing to unprecedented coal crisis.
The power station was owned by the erstwhile Orissa State Electricity Board and later acquired by power major National Thermal Power Corporation Limited in 1995. The plant has been giving its total production to the state-run Grid Corporation of Orissa since then. The corporation power station draws coal from nearby Jaganath coal mine by conveyor belt and rakes.
The power station is facing its worst-ever coal crisis with its stock down to a record low. The station has three days’ stock at its disposal. Because, on an average, 3,000MT of coal had been reaching the station per day since August against the requirement of about 9,500MT to run all the six units at the plant, said a power station source, adding that their 15-day stock has been reduced to just three days.
“We had to eat up from the stock as we faced very low supply from Mahanadi Coal Fields Limited (MCL) mine at Talcher for many days. At present, we run five units with one unit shut for annual maintenance. The requirement for five units remains at 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes per day, but we receive less,” said additional general manager S. Panda.
“If the supply situation does not improve, it is feared that the units will be forced to shut down affecting power production. We evacuate all the power to the Grid Corporation of Orissa following the power purchase agreement during the transfer of the plant,” he said.
Power secretary Pradip Jena had reportedly written to the chief of MCL to increase supply to the power station in wake of the crisis. Reacting to the coal shortage situation at Talcher, an MCL official said: “We had supplied 114 per cent of coal requirement of the power station from April 1 to September 17 following the fuel supply agreement. The supply may be less now but it was higher earlier. There is low supply now at the collieries in Talcher because of frequent law and order problems.”
