Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs |
|
|
|
|
|
Home Page
-
Power Corporate - Performance
Our Bureau New Delhi, June 23 A tonne of coal is the same as another tonne of coal, you might think. But power major NTPC Ltd is finding that this year’s coal is not yielding as much energy to generate electricity as last year’s did or as that of the year before. So the utility needs to burn more and more coal to produce a unit of electricity. In 2008-09, NTPC, the nation’s largest electricity producer with 79 coal-fired units across the country, managed to increase its electricity output by 3.7 per cent over the previous year, but had to consume 5.4 per cent more coal than it did previously. It was not an anomaly. In 2007-08, it increased electricity output by 8.2 per cent, but coal burn was up 9.2 per cent. The situation was better the previous year (2006-07), where electricity output was up nearly 11 per cent against an incremental coal consumption of around 8 per cent. Demand-supply mismatchNTPC officials concede that that a steady decline in domestic coal quality has been among the key factors responsible for the mismatch in incremental coal consumption and power generation. “Power stations are designed for a particular coal quality range for optimum plant efficiency. The key areas of concern include high levels of ash in coal, which goes up to 45 per cent in case of domestic coal, and also inconsistency in coal quality, both chemical and physical. Presence of mineral matter in coal has a detrimental impact — wear and tear of coal and ash flow paths, combustion chambers, mills, crushers etc. High ash also impacts the plants thermal efficiency,” an NTPC official said. Domestic problemAccording to Coal Ministry officials, Indian coal has always had a problem on account of high ash content. “Besides the inherent ash problem, there is dilution in the quality of coal due to the over-reliance of open cast mining over underground mining in recent years,” a Coal Ministry official said. Stones and other inert material happen to get scooped up along with the coal. While in 1970-71, open cast mining constituted only 20 per cent of production, at present about 85 per cent of coal is produced through this mining method, due to which the quality of coal — in terms of gross calorific value — has been steadily deteriorating. According to Power Ministry estimates, during the early 1960s, the calorific value of domestic coal was around 5,900 kilocalories per kilogram (KCals/Kg). By the 1970s, this had gone down to around 5,250 KCals/Kg, which dipped further to around 4,200 KCals/Kg in the Eighties. This came down to around 4,000 KCals/Kg in the Nineties then to the current levels of around 3,500 KCals/Kg. Imported coal from countries such as Indonesia, Australia and South Africa, in comparison, has an average calorific value of around 6,500 KCals/Kg. (The chart shows the incremental fuel consumption at NTPC’s coal-fired stations and the corresponding rise in generation.) NTPC moves up the ladder on efficiency NTPC, CIL plan venture for mining, power plant NTPC, Coal India impasse on fuel supply pact ends More Stories on : Power | Performance | Coal | NTPC Ltd
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page
|
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | The Hindu ePaper | Business Line | Business Line ePaper | Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | The Hindu Images | Home |
Copyright © 2009, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|