NEYVELI: The National Thermal Power Corporation and the Neyveli Lignite Corporation have requested the Union Ministry of Power to allow them to sell 15 per cent of the unallocated power to become commercially viable.
The stringent regulatory measures still keep the public sector undertakings in shackles, preventing them from commercially utilising their capacity, according to S.Jayaraman, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, NLC.
He was addressing a seminar on “Thermal power generation technologies—the emerging scenario,” organised under the aegis of the Institution of Engineers (India) here.
Mr. Jayaraman said though the NLC’s capacity was fully sold out, it was not commercially viable to collect the capacity charges, particularly when thousands of crores had been invested in plants.
(Unallocated power is the portion of energy kept aside in the grid to meet the surge in demand from any beneficiary State). Because of the low calorific value of fuel, high mining cost and labour charges and the problem in acquiring land, it had become difficult for the lignite-based power plants to survive, leave alone going in for expansion.
The long haul of fossil fuel from one region to another, either by road or rail or sea, would add to the expenditure. At this rate, the imported coal, even at the international price of $70 a tonne, would be cheaper than the locally mined coal. Mr. Jayaraman said the Thermal Power Station-I had exhausted its life and the NLC Board had given its consent to close it down by 2008. But, the economy ought to be worked out for its replacement.
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