S Asia’s 1st thermal station at Neyveli decommissioned

After being in operation for the last 58 years ever since it was synchronished with the grid on May 23, 1962, the boilers, turbines and generators at the South Asia’s first and only lignite-fired power station of NLCIL fell silent at 16 04 hrs, when the sixth and last one, Unit-6, was decommissioned. “NLCIL sources said TPS-I was set up following discovery of lignite deposits in Neyveli in this district of Tamil Nadu in 1962.

An epitome of Indo-Soviet collaboration, TPS-I in all had nine units, including six units of 50 MW each and three units of 100 MW each.

The plant was set up between 1962 and 1970 in three stages with an initial capital of Rs 77.81 crore.

The then President Dr S Radhakrishnan had dedicated the Unit-I to the Nation on August 5, 1962. While Unit-1 was synchronised with the grid on May 23, 1962, the last unit was synchronised with the grid on February 21, 1970, with TANGEDCO being the sole beneficiary of the plant.

After the Unit-1 of the Neyveli New Thermal Plant —the replacement plant —started commercial operation, NLCIL started decommissioning the TPS-I units in phases from March this year.

Accordingly, all the units of TPS-I have been decommissioned and Unit-6 was the last to go silent on Wednesday evening.

Since its inception, TPS-1 had generated a total of 1,85,390 million units. All the Units of TPS-I have clocked a total service of 32,66,140 hours.