Initiatives to Improve the Efficiency of Coal Based Power Plants
India has abundant domestic reserves of coal. In order to secure energy requirement of the country, coal based generation will remain important for power generation of India. This was stated by Sh. Piyush Goyal, Minister of state for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy (IC) in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today. The Centre for Science and Technology in its report “Green Rating of Coal-Based Thermal Power Plants” has given suggestions for improving the efficiency of thermal power plants in India.
The Minister further stated that Government of India has already taken following initiatives to improve the efficiency of coal based power plants and to reduce the carbon footprint of the power sector:
(i) Out of about 87,000 MW thermal capacity under construction, about 48,000 MW is based on supercritical technology, which uses less coal.
(ii) Supercritical technology has been made mandatory for Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) being implemented.
(iii) In 13th Plan, all coal fired capacity addition shall be through supercritical units.
(iv) An Advanced Ultra Super Critical Technology R&D Project has been approved by Government at a cost of Rs.1500 Crore involving BHEL, NTPC and Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) to achieve higher efficiency, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and coal consumption for coal based power plants.
(v) Renovation, Modernization and Life Extension of old thermal power generating units and retirement of old and inefficient thermal generation units, in phased manner, is being undertaken. A total capacity of 3,000 MW has been retired till date.
(vi) Government of India have issued policy on automatic transfer of linkage in case of scrapping of old units and replacing them with new supercritical plants.
(vii) Doubling coal cess from Rs.100 per tonne to Rs.200 per tonne for funding projects under National Clean Energy Fund as announced in the Budget Speech of 2015-16.
(viii) Increasing the share of renewable energy in the overall power generation in the country.
(ix) Perform Achieve Trade (PAT) Scheme under National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency is under implementation by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). In this Scheme, individual target for improving energy efficiency has been assigned to 144 number of thermal stations.
RM/RS- USQ2682 – LS