NTPC develops infra at Rihand project for fly ash transportation

New Delhi: State-run power generation company NTPC on Sunday said that it has developed the required infrastructure at its Rihand project in Uttar Pradesh for transporting fly ash in bulk to cement plants at a cheaper cost.

The development is in line with NTPC's commitment to 100 per cent utilisation of fly ash from power plants. In a statement, NTPC said the first rake of 59 'BOXN' type railway wagons carrying 3,450 metric tonnes fly ash was flagged off from NTPC's Rihand Super Thermal Power station by Executive Director, Rihand, Balaji Iyengar, for the ACC Cement manufacturing plant, at Tikaria, located at a distance of 458 km.

The innovation will pave the way for efficient and safer transportation in large quantities of fly ash from the power plants to cement production units located at a distance, it said.

"The effort marks the beginning of a new era for the transportation of fly ash from a remote location to a consumption centre, enabling power plants for upgrading utilisation of fly ash with the availability of additional material loading avenues for Indian Railways and accessibility of fly ash to the cement plants in an environment-friendly manner at a competitive price," it added.

During the financial year 2019-20, almost 44.33 million tonnes of fly ash was utilised for various productive purposes, being 73.31 per cent of the ash generated. The company is looking at new avenues of fly ash management like fly ash-based geo-polymer roads, and use of bottom ash as replacement of fine aggregate sand in cement concrete. NTPC also has plans to set up a fly ash classifier unit for export purposes.

With an installed capacity of 62.9 GW, NTPC Group has 70 power stations, comprising 24 coal, 7 combined cycle gas/liquid fuel, 1 hydro, 13 renewables along with 25 subsidiary and JV power stations. It group has more than 20 GW of capacity under construction, including 5 GW of renewable energy projects.