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HYDERABAD, May 12

RECENT outages at the National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd-owned, 1000-MW Simhadri power plant in Visakhapatnam was due to the evacuation system rather than due to problems in the plant itself, according to the Executive Director of NTPC (Southern Region), Mr R.C. Srivastav.

Reacting to recent statements by the Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation (AP Transco), Mr Srivastav, sought to explain that the fault was due to the existing evacuation system, which in turn has put pressure on the plant forcing NTPC to trip both the 500 MW generating plants. The intensity due to pressure on the plant was such that there was no other go but to shut down these plants and restart them keeping in view the acute demand in summer months.

Explaining the current situation, Mr Srivastav said that any problem or fault in evacuation and transmission system mostly affected the nearest generating station. For example, if any fault occurs in the transmission system near Visakhapatnam it will affect the Simhadri generating systems. If the transmission fails to isolate itself, the station will act as a back up measure after a time delay.

Summing up the design of the protection system, Mr Srivastav said that if a fault occurs in transmission system, the nearest circuit breaker trips and the breaker ahead should take care of the fault and automatically trip. In the event of failure of these equipments in isolating the fault, as a safeguard to the generating station, the back up protection isolates itself. This is the basic design criterion for any generating system. If this is not done, it would impact the entire State grid and later the southern grid, he said.

One of the other major problems of the evacuation system is with regard to the transmission systems located near the sea-shore. In the coastal regions, during the summer months of April and May, temperature difference in day and night is large and the evaporation rate high in the day. In turn during night, this evaporated water gets condensed and gets accumulated on the electrical equipment including insulators and transmission towers. This phenomenon is pronounced during early hours wherein the condensed moisture on the equipment reduces the insulating property of electrical equipment. This leads to short-circuiting and, thereafter, to faults in the transmission systems.

Feasibility study for Simhadri expansion

NATIONAL Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC) has drawn up plans to take up feasibility studies for the expansion of the 1,000-MW Simhadri coal-based power station located near Visakhapatnam and also for locating a mega power plant at Krishnapatnam port in Andhra Pradesh.

The Executive Director of NTPC (Southern Region), Mr R.C. Srivastav said, "though nothing has been concretised, we plan to take up the feasibility studies internally for the expansion of the Simhadri plant by two more units of 500 MW each and locating a possible greenfield plant at the Krishnapatnam port".

"We cannot comment when this exploratory process will be completed and what could be the overall investment and plant size; NTPC is keen to take this up as we see there is huge business potential. Following the recent electricity enactment, we see greater role for us wherein we will be free to supply excess power from our plants to users. Recently, we have firmed up supply of about 50 MW of power to the Railways from our Dadri plant near Delhi," he said. When asked to comment on the recent proposal to sell power to the Railways, Mr Srivastav said, "the Electricity Act, 2003, enables us to supply additional unallocated power to any consumer. This will mean we can firm up for supply of power to other consumers as well from other plants when the State does not need the entire capacity".

With regard to the revival plans for the Hyderabad metro power project, which was shelved after a few years of sustained efforts by the State Government to locate the project near here to provide dedicated supply to the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, Mr Srivastav said, "we have not thought about it and no efforts have been initiated to revive the project".

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