Kadapa: Rayalaseema Thermal power project (RTPP) has been stopped after 810 Megawatts power production due to lack of thermal coal.
The RTPP’s actual production from 6 units is 1650 Megawatts per day. The two which were shut down were unit-I which is about 210 Megawatts production capacity and unit-VI which is 600 Megawatts production capacity.
Unit-I was stopped three days ago, while unit-VI was stopped on Thursday and now the project is producing only 600 Megawatts per day out of the 840 MW capacity.
Everyday, about 25,000 tonnes of coal is required for this project.
Most of the coal was supplied by the Mahanadi coalfields limited (MCL) and Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL). Everyday, eight rakes of coal are required for all the units to generate power. But they have been getting five to six rakes of coal by train, and it is not sufficient to run all the units. While Singareni is not able to supply enough, MCL coal supply was stopped due to the rains. Incidentally, in recent days, power generation has been stopped frequently in the RTPP project due to many reasons.
The chief engineer, Mr Subrahmanyam, told this newspaper, “The sixth unit’s chimney emits a high volume of smoke, and therefore due to this technical reason we stopped production.”
He added that there was insufficient coal supply from the mines and in addition, the quality was also very poor. “Due to all these reasons, the production in two units has been stopped,” he added.
