Angul, Dec. 24: Studies and surveys to expand National Thermal Power Corporation Limited's 3,000MW plant at Kaniha here have begun.

As part of the company's ambitious countrywide capacity expansion plan, the NTPC has decided to add two 800MW units to the current 3,000MW plant. After the expansion, the total capacity will shoot up to 4,600MW, the second largest in the country after its Vidhyanchal unit.

The Kaniha plant's executive director N. K. Kothari said: "These state-of-the-art units will produce power at much cheaper rate than the existing units. The state, which will have 50 per cent share, will highly benefit from the expanded units."

He said that once the study process was over, the expansion would be faster to start the construction within a year. The plant has surplus land, water and coal source from mines for the expansion.

Kothari said the Kaniha plant, which provides power to 17 states, had performed better this year by achieving 2 per cent more plant load factor (PLF) by December 22. With this, the plant stood first among the big power plants in the country.

"While last year, the PLF was at 87.17 per cent on this date, it was 89.19 per cent this year. It is due to enhancement of capacity and the collective efforts of all our executives and workers. We will achieve the average PLF of 91 per cent by the end of the current fiscal, while the target on us is to touch 86 per cent," he said.

On NTPC, the executive director said the company aimed to produce 1.28 lakh MW power by the end of 2032 as against the current capacity of 45,000MW.

Following the clearance of the National Green Tribunal, the Centre was considering to grant the Talcher coalmine to the NTPC-Kaniha. The plant management has chalked out plans to manage environment due to fly ash, he said.

"Under the environment management initiative, the station is providing a subsidy of Rs 150 per tonne for vendors to carry ash from its ash pond for making tiles, bricks and so on. The station is planning to enter into agreements with companies having plans to set up cement units for extensive utilisation of ash," he said.