Two of the five units of the Tuticorin Thermal Power Station (TTPS) suspended production after a breakdown on Friday evening.
While the third unit developed a puncture in its boiler tube at 5.23 p.m. on Friday, air pre-heater equipment in the fifth unit was found to be defective at 6.08 p.m., S.Valliappan, Chief Engineer, TTPS, said on Saturday.
He said the third unit would resume production on Sunday evening after repair, and it would take three to four days for the fifth unit to start functioning, as technicians would need more time to fix the air pre-heater, a 140-tonne support beaming equipment that improved boiler efficiency.
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Mr. Valliappan said the TTPS, commissioned in 1979 with two units, had been functioning well with the modernisation of electrical, electronic, temperature steam equipment and transformers at regular intervals.
420 MWe loss
Each unit had a capacity to generate 210 megawatt of power. The TTPS achieved an all-time record output of 90 per cent – 945 MWe against the total production capacity of 1,050 MWe – in 2012-13, he pointed out.
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“The fourth unit set a record by functioning for 182 consecutive days from January 2013, and in 2009, the fifth unit ran successfully for 232 days without any technical problem,” he noted.
Coal import
About handling of coal for power production, Mr.Valliappan said 25 per cent of coal used in the plant was imported from Indonesia, and the rest was sourced domestically.
“Currently, 2.25 lakh tonnes of coal is stocked in the plant. Every day, 25,000 tonnes of coal is being discharged from vessels berthed at the Tuticorin port for power production at the TTPS,” he said.