The Hindu : National : NTPC plan to sustain Kayamkulam project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 07, 2004

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National

NTPC plan to sustain Kayamkulam project

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, APRIL 6. The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has announced a new project in Tamil Nadu and a plan to sustain the Kayamkulam power station in Kerala.

The NTPC will construct a 1,000-MW power station at Ennore, near Chennai, on an outlay of Rs. 4,000 crores. The station will go on stream in March 2012. The corporation has signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and formed a joint venture, NTPC Tamil Nadu Energy Company Limited, for the purpose.

The Executive Director (NTPC Southern Region), S.V. Moorthy, said here today that the expansion of the 2,100-MW Ramagundam complex in Andhra Pradesh had reached the final stage and an additional 500 MW would be available from June 2005. Of this, 146 MW would be Andhra Pradesh's share.

Mr. Moorthy said the Kayamkulam unit's capacity would be increased from 350 to 2,300 MW, with an investment of Rs. 7,584 crores. Naptha would be replaced by liquified natural gas (LNG) as fuel to bring down the sale price to about Rs. 2.50 per unit as compared to Rs. 3.03 now. The NTPC was trying to source LNG from either the Gulf nations or the Krishna-Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh, where gas was struck recently.

The NTPC had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation for executing the project, Mr. Moorthy said. The first unit, of 650 MW, would be ready by July 2008. When the Kayamkulam unit was set up, naptha was available in the open market at Rs. 6,000 per tonne but the price shot up to Rs. 21,000 per tonne later. Because of this, the cost of power went up and discouraged buyers. The unit's capacity was brought down and it could be run only at 67 per cent plant load factor (PLF).

Mr. Moorthy said that the capacity of the Talcher complex, which was meant for the southern States, was also being trebled to 3,000 MW, as also that of Tehalgaon, Talcher-I and Farakka of the eastern grid to 2,400 MW from 400 MW.

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