TANGEDCO floats tender to import coal for new 800 MW thermal plant

CHENNAI: TANGEDCO has floated a tender to import coal to meet the requirement for the generation of the 800 MW North Chennai Super Critical Thermal Power Station Stage 3 which was inaugurated by the chief minister on March 7.

The supercritical thermal power has been designed to run on 100 per cent imported coal but the officials planning to run the unit based on 50 per cent imported coal and domestic coal considering the high cost of imported coal.

According to the TANGEDCO sources, the trial operation of the unit is underway, and it has generated a maximum of 250 MW.

"The trial operation will continue until the unit achieves stabilisation. Since it is the first supercritical plant with a generation capacity of 800 MW, it will take a few more months to resolve the teething problems, " sources said.

As the generation in the new unit will be stepped up, it requires a continuous supply of imported coal, the sources said, adding that hence the tender has been floated based on a variable price mechanism. The quantum of the coal import is not yet known.

So far the NCTPS Stage 3 has generated about 43 million units, said sources.

Once the unit achieves commercial operation, it will generate 5,957 million units a year at the plant load factor of 85 per cent.

TANGEDCO has a Fuel Supply Agreement (FSA) with Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) for a quantity of 1.971 million tonnes per annum which is 50 per cent of the coal requirement that has been executed for 25 years.

"The rest of the coal requirement would be met through import, " sources added.