25-year-old plants to be modernised, made supercritical

Mumbai: Aiming to augment power generation in a manner producing less pollution, the Maharashtra government is going to replace its 25-year-old thermal power plants by converting them into supercritical modern power plants. Recently, the state cabinet committee gave its approval to the conversion of its Bhusaval plant into a supercritical plant.

It was a policy decision by the Centre to convert the 25-year-old plants into supercritical ones to have better generation. On an average these plants generate 660 mw of power. Koradi thermal power station was the first to get converted into a supercritical plant in 2015. Chandrapur was converted to supercritical last year. Also, Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has decommissioned two units of 210 MW each at the Chandrapur plant, one 210 MW unit at Parli power plant and one 200 MW unit at Koradi power plant so that it can be converted.

“The state government has recently given approval to convert the Bhusaval plant into supercritical, as it was old. The supercritical plants use less fuel and emission levels are also low. The old power plants are not in the position to even upgrade. The new technology is completely different and hence old plans are to be replaced, ” Vishwas Pathak, director MSEDCL said.

After the Centre’s policy change, the state will have to replace 17 units out of 29, which are over 25 years old. About 11 of them are older than 30 years. These units have capacity generation of 210 mw and after replacement; the capacity would increase to 660 mw.

Considering the recent power crisis in the state due to the coal shortage, the MSEDCL think that the supercritical power plants will help in that situation. “The coal requirement for the supercritical plants is less which is advantageous,” Pathak said.