Green initiatives at thermal power plants

The total installed generation capacity is around 330GW, out of which the coal based power stations in the country is 193GW which is sufficient to meet the maximum peak demand of 163GW occurred during the current year.

Coal based generation continues to see a rise in September and October 2017. It is expected that coal-fired power generation is likely to grow 4.05 per cent during 2017-18. Coal-fired power plants should generate about 9,58,444 million units of power in 2017-18.

The Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal, says that the government has reviewed the status of 34 stressed Thermal Power Projects, as per the list provided by Department of Financial Services (DFS), with an estimated debt of about Rs. 1.77 lakh crore.

Even though at present almost 60% of power generation in India is from coal and other sources, but in the years to come, green sources of energy, including the nuclear energy will be playing a major contribution. According to the MoS (PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space), Dr Jitendra Singh.

The government has taken several steps to modernize and improve the efficiency of coal based thermal power plants and to reduce the pollution level of coal based thermal power plants in the vicinity of these plants, according to Piyush Goyal.

These are as follows: (i) Supercritical technology has already been adopted for thermal power generation. A capacity addition of 39,710 MW power based on supercritical technology has already been achieved and 48,060 MW of supercritical technology is in the pipeline; (ii) All Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) are required to use supercritical technology; (iii) Coal based capacity addition during the 13th Plan period shall be through super-critical units; (iv) A capacity of about 7751.94 MW of old and inefficient unit has already been retired till date; (v) To facilitate State Utilities/IPPs to replace old inefficient coal based thermal units with supercritical units; (vi) High efficiency Electrostatics Preceptor (ESP) are installed to capture Particulate Matters from Flue gases; (vii) Low NOX burners are installed for reducing NOx emission from flue gases; and (viii) SO2 emission control is achieved through dispersion of flue gases through tall stacks (275 metres) to reduce the concentration of polluting gases at ground level.