Neyveli Lignite Corporation has entered into an agreement with Kobe Steel Ltd of Japan for R&D and feasibility studies to set up a power plant that will use upgraded brown coal, according to a press release from NLC.

The MoU was signed on Wednesday after a research project by NLC’s Centre for Applied Research and Development and Kobe Steel to upgrade lignite, also know as brown coal, mined by the public sector NLC.

Under the joint study cleared by the New Energy and Industrial Development Organisation, under the Ministry of Economy, Japan, over 80 tonnes of lignite from Neyveli was sent to Kobe Steel’s pilot plant in Indonesia for drying and pelleting. The study indicated that upgrading brown coal by reducing moisture content to less than 10 per cent helped to more than double the calorific value to 5,400 Kcal/kg from 2,600 Kcal/Kg, the release said.

Kobe Steel has suggested that NLC can go for an Ultra Super Critical Power Plant using upgraded brown coal. NLC is going in for a feasibility study for setting up a pilot power plant in Neyveli using brown coal.

Conveyor Efficiency

NLC has also entered into an agreement with National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi for improving energy efficiency of conveyors.

Under the R&D agreement the partners will test Dynamic loading, using Programme Logic Control Circuit in the conveyor systems which will permit all motors to work only while starting the conveyor and then depending on the load will operate just the required number of motors automatically.

According to the release, over two million units of electricity can be saved in each conveyor system. NLC uses 50 conveyor systems in its second mine and can save over ₹ 31 crore annually. The research project is estimated to cost about ₹ 1.22 crore with NLC contributing ₹ 58 lakh and the NIT ₹ 63 lakh.

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