Visakhapatnam: The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)-Mumbai, has been appointed to conduct the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) study for the expansion of NTPC’s Simhadri thermal power plant at Parawada. The SIA study will begin within a month.
NTPC sought around 400 acres from the state government to build a brownfield thermal power plant adjacent to the Simhadri Plant with a capacity of 1,320 MW with 2 units of 660 MW each in Parawada, 70 km from the city.
Already 2,000 MW of electricity is generated at Simhadri plant and a majority of it is supplied to Andhra Pradesh. The new brownfield plant will come up with ultra super critical technology with higher efficiency and less coal consumption and emissions.
At present, AP heavily depends on the already existing NTPC’s Simhadri coal-fired power plant, which has four units having a capacity of generating 500 MW each.
The state gets a total of 1,000 MW generated from stage-I and 452 MW from stage-II. The remaining is distributed to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Pondicherry and Telangana.
"The land cost has been communicated to NTPC authorities and they have confirmed the same. TISS has been appointed to conduct the SIA which is expected to begin shortly," said a senior district official.
Once all the statutory approvals are in place the new brownfield plant will be ready for commissioning within 52 months from the day works are started.
NTPC is in a final stage of securing environmental clearance for establishing a 4,000 MW super critical thermal power plant at Lalamkoduru near Pudimadaka in the district with an investment outlay of Rs 28,828 crore.
The state government has allotted 1,200 acres in Pudimadaka for the project and 700 acres have already been alienated. Remaining 500 acres will be alienated and handed over to NTPC very soon.
AP will get 85 per cent of the electricity generated from the Pudimadaka plant at a rate of Rs 4 or Rs 5 per unit. The power generation will be from imported coal and the requirement is 13.7 million tonne per annum.
The coal will be imported at either Vizag port or Gangavaram port.
