It was exactly a year ago that the 6×150 megawatt Srisailam Left Bank Hydro Electric Station went into flames that started with a spark in the panel board of the fourth unit, leaving the power project out of service in the middle of the flood season when hydel generation takes place in full capacity.
Taking the incident, which left nine persons dead, including seven employees and two of a contract agency, and leaving the unit out of service, in its stride, the Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Ltd (TS Genco) had put back into service five of the six units with minimal costs in a phased manner from the last week of October 2020.
“Setting aside doubts over the revival of the power station with speculation of huge losses running into thousands of crores, the engineers of TS Genco in association with private partners (material suppliers) could revive two units (1 and 2) in just two months after the incident. Two more units (5 and 6) were brought back into service in the next three months before the pandemic affecting the remaining work,” director (hydel) of the power utility Ch. Venkata Rajam told The Hindu .
One more unit (3) was brought back into service in mid-May by sourcing the material required locally. The revival of the five units cost the TS Genco only about ₹20 crore.
However, the revival of the sixth unit (4) is getting delayed right from the beginning, again due to COVID restrictions on international travel for the arrival of engineers from the Japanese firm that supplied the equipment. “After the engineers from Japan reached, the unbundling of the unit took time to ascertain the extent of the exact damage. The generator in the unit was found to be badly-damaged but the turbine was intact,” another Genco engineer explained.
The authorities then decided to replace the core and winding in the generator. After finalising the agency for the work through tenders, designs and drawings were being finalised to fabricate the material, Mr. Rajam said, stating that the unit could be ready for generation in the next flood season. He stated that they have modernised the exhaust and ventilation systems to prevent such mishaps in future.
Asked about the internal committee report on the incident, he said that the report along with recommendations were submitted already but was yet to be approved and added that they were also replacing the existing SCADA system in the power station with a modern one.
