With the rising temperature, pressure is mounting on the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) to produce more power to meet the growing demand in the State. But technical issues are limiting its power generation.
After a problem in Unit 7 was fixed on Sunday, on the same evening, Unit 5 stopped generating power following leakage in the boiler tube. Experts from Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. are working on it, and it is hoped that it would begin functioning in three days, sources said.
Unit 4 has remained shut during the last month owing to leakage in the steam turbine generator. Executive Director of RTPS Venugopal C. hopes it will resume power generation shortly.
With two units not working, the RTPS is incurring a loss of 420 MW (210 MW each) per day.
Technical issues have also reduced the amount of power generation from the six working units (including Unit 8), which are now producing around 700 MW against their combined installed capacity of 1,300 MW. Sources in the RTPS said that Unit 8 was generating around half of its installed capacity of 250 MW.
Situated at Shaktinagar, around 20 km away from Raichur, the eight units contribute around 30 per cent to the total power generated in the State. The first seven units have a combined installed capacity of 1,470 MW.
Sources said the RTPS was not facing problems of either shortage of good quality coal or water. It had a stock of 1.23 lakh tonnes of coal in addition to receiving around 7 rakes of coal every day (more than 20,000 tonnes) from Singareni coal mines (Andhra Pradesh), Mahanadi Coalfields in Talcher (Odisha) and Western Coalfields in Nagpur (Maharashtra).
The RTPA is supplied with 200 cusecs of water a day from the Krishna. There is also an alternative arrangement to supply water from Gugal barrage, around 50 km from the RTPS, whenever there is shortage of water in the river.
The Narayanpur Dam, built across the Krishna, supplies water to the Gugal barrage.
