Public sector mining-cum-power company NLC India Ltd (formerly Neyveli Lignite Corporation) has decided not to go ahead with its proposed 4,000 MW coal-based power plant at Sirkali, Tamil Nadu.

The Sirkali project was conceived in 2010 with the coal to come from Talabira mines in Odisha. NLC now believes that the project is unviable.

The company’s Chairman and Managing Director, SK Acharya, told BusinessLine that there is little point in transporting “huge quantity of coal by road, rail and sea over a distance of 1,650 km and bringing it to Sirkali,” after building a jetty for the purpose of downloading it.

Instead, NLC plans to put up four units of 660 MW supercritical lignite-fired power plants, with the fuel coming from its own mines near Neyveli.

The project is unique because there is no other lignite-fired supercritical plant in the country.

The tender for equipment for the first phase of the project (2x660 MW) will come out in May, Acharya said.

CFBC technology Meanwhile, NLC is putting up two 250 MW units in Rajasthan, based on CFBC technology. (Circulating fluidised bed combustion’ boilers are better suited than conventional boilers for burning fuels with low calorific value, such as lignite.) CFBC boilers as big as 250 MW was unprecedented in India, and indeed very few units exist in the world.

NLC had a bitter experience in its first tryst with CFBC boilers.

A contract given to fellow-public sector company, power equipment manufacturer, BHEL, to set up two CFBC units of 250 MW each, ran into huge technical issues, resulting in cost and time over-runs.

A public spat between the two public sector undertakings erupted.

After over six years of delay, the two units were commissioned in 2015.

According to Acharya, the units are running well, though right now one of them is shut for maintenance.

NLC believes it has learnt CFBC technology. Emboldened by the knowledge, it is putting up a similar project in Rajasthan.

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