The Hindu Business Line : Madras Cements to set up captive power plant in AP

MADRAS Cements Ltd plans to set up an 18-MW coal-based captive power plant at its Jayanthipuram plant in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. The plant is expected to cost about Rs 60 crore and will come up next year.

This will be the second coal-fired captive power plant that the company is setting up. Last year, it commissioned a 36-MW plant at its Alathiyur factory in Tamil Nadu. With this, the entire power requirement of the Alathiyur plant is met through captive generation. The Alathiyur plant uses coal imported from Indonesia or Petcoke. Thermax Ltd set up the plant at Alathiyur.

According to Mr A.V. Dharmakrishnan, Senior Vice President - Finance, Madras Cements, the company has got coal linkage from Singareni for its Jayanthipuram plant, which it will use for the captive power plant. The company will shortly decide on the equipment supplier for this plant. The Jayanthipuram plant has a cement production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes.

Madras Cements has invested Rs 22.12 crore in Andhra Pradesh Gas Power Corporation Ltd (APGPCL) by purchasing 16.08 lakh shares. This entitles the company to source 6 MW power from APGPCL at economical rates compared to the tariff charged by the power utility in Andhra Pradesh.

Besides investing in the captive power plant, Madras Cements is also expanding its wind farm capacity. It has 33 MW of installed capacity in Tamil Nadu and 1.2 MW in Karnataka. The electricity generated by the wind turbines in Tamil Nadu is used for the cement plant at RR Nagar while that in Karnataka for the plant at Mathodu. The company plans to add another 6 MW in Tamil Nadu and 4.8 MW in Karnataka.

With this, electricity generated by the wind turbines will meet 85 per cent of the RR Nagar plant's power requirement against 65 per cent now and in the case of the Mathodu plant, wind power will account for 55 per cent of the power used.

The company's strategy is to reduce its dependence on grid power as much as possible.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page