The Hindu : Karnataka News : KPCL shows how to turn a threat into a boon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 12, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

KPCL shows how to turn a threat into a boon

D.K. Kishan Rao

It recently achieved a milestone in 100 p.c. utilisation of fly-ash

POSITIVE APPROACH: The Centre for Fly-ash Utilisation Technology and Environmental Conservation at the Raichur Thermal Power Station.

Raichur: The adoption of advanced technology in the manufacture of high grade cement by many cement manufacturing companies has come as a boon to Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL), which has ensured a pollution-free environment in and around the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS).

The RTPS, with an installed capacity of 1,460 mw, is generating about 15 lakh tonnes of fly-ash annually. However, KPCL recently achieved a milestone in 100 per cent utilisation of fly-ash.

KPCL, a State-owned utility, was worried over the safe disposal of fly-ash when the 210-mw first unit of the RTPS was commissioned in 1984-85. It could not find a proper scientific method to handle the menace of fly-ash which was produced on a large scale at the RTPS when its installed capacity was enhanced to 1,260 mw by 1999.

Except for a small quantity of fly-ash consumption by local brick manufacturing industries, a major portion of fly-ash was dumped at the ash ponds posing a threat to environment in the area. Though KPCL felt that the disposal of fly-ash was a major environmental concern in thermal power stations, it adopted several steps for the safe disposal of fly-ash.

It encouraged local industrialists to boost fly-ash-based products by supplying free fly-ash and offering a package for farmers for utilising fly-ash in agriculture. But its efforts did not help much as it was not able to use fly-ash on a large scale.

However, it managed to boost utilisation of fly-ash by 2004-05 when several cement manufacturing industries came forward to lift fly-ash on a large scale. By that time, the installed capacity of the RTPS was enhanced to 1,470 mw generating about 4,500 tonnes of fly-ash daily.

In the past two years, many leading cement manufacturing companies, including ACC, Rajashree and Vasavadatta, have tied up with KPCL for lifting fly-ash (about 4,200 tonnes daily) accounting for almost 80 per cent of that generated at the RTPS. The remaining is being dumped at the ash pond as “bottom ash”.

However, some construction companies from Andhra Pradesh and the Railways have come forward to lift “bottom ash” for the construction of roads and bridges.

At the same time, KPCL has set up a Centre for Fly-ash Utilisation Technology and Environmental Conservation on the premises of the thermal plant in consultation with the Central Power Research Institute under an Indo-Norwegian Environmental Programme as a demonstration plant for manufacturing value-added construction material such as bricks, hallow concrete blocks, mosaic tiles and glazed flooring tiles by using fly-ash on a large scale. It imparts free technological training to entrepreneurs involved in the manufacture of building material.

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