wiredinusa March 2012

INDEX

Picture : Alessandro Paiva

ASIA & AFRICA NEWS

Most power plants in Tamil Nadu “under repair”

The Hindu Business Line newspaper reports that ‘forced outages’ due to power plant break downs are adding to the state’s problems when Tamil Nadu is already suffering a severe power shortage. On one day in mid-February, as much as 1,397MW was lost to forced outages and this was responsible for a 30 percent load shedding at the peak hours. Of the 1,397MW of capacity under repair, 458MW are under the private sector, including the 330MW, gas-based PPN power project, which has been closed a month due to a leak in the heat recovery steam generator system. Another 44MW was lost due to a problem in the Kaiga atomic power plant in Karnataka, due to “a problem in the turbine-generator system”.

Of the plants run by the state utility, one of the units of the North Chennai Thermal Power Station, of 210MW capacity, is not likely to be put back in operation before 10 th March. The problem has been stated as ‘stator coil failure’. Similarly, another 210MW unit, of the Tuticorin Thermal Power Station, is out of operation and will take a month to be up and running. Three units of the problematic Ennore Thermal Power Station, of a total capacity of 110MW each, are in a state of disrepair – one of them for over 230 days. Poor maintenance of the plants is responsible for their frequent outage, said an official of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.

ASIA / AFRICA NEWS

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wiredInUSA - March 2012

wiredInUSA - March 2012

63