Chennai: The 45-year-old Ennore Thermal Power Station will cease generation once for all on Wednesday when the coal stock is exhausted.
After deciding to decommission the oldest coal based thermal plant by March 31, 2017 Tangedco has directed to stop fresh supply of coal and asked to exhaust the available coal stock in the Ennore plant. In effect, the generation will come to a halt.
A senior Tangedco official confirmed that the decision to exhaust the existing coal stock in the plant was taken in line with the Tangedco board decision to decommission the plant in March next year. “We have decided to shutdown all the four units as per the board's decision. This will allow us to dismantle the units,” said the official.
The Ennore thermal plant comprises two 60 mw units and three 110 mw units, which were commissioned between 1970 and 1975. Already, Tangedco had decommissioned the fifth unit of 110-mw capacity bringing down the operating capacity to the station to 340 mw. A union leader in ETPS said that at present only unit IV of 110 mw capacity is under operation generating 60 mw. “The unit will generate till Wednesday evening. After that all the units will be shut down permanently,” he said.
The Ennore TPS units are of lower capacity and of very old design and have served for more than 40 years and outlived its utility, said the official. The decommissioning of the plant will enable taking up the 660 mw supercritical ETPS Replacement Project for which the paper work has already began. The supercritical unit could produce more energy and will emit less pollution.
Besides, the ETPS decommissioning was speeded up in the wake of expiry of terms of reference given by Ministry of Environment and Forest for ETPS Replacement 660 mw project on July 23. While applying for TOR to MOEF for the ETPS Replacement project, Tangedco's director, generation had committed that the existing ETPS plant would be decommissioned by March 31, 2017.
“The validity for TOR had already expired and further extension of two years has been requested by the project wing, but a one-year extension is expected up to July 23 next year. Before that date, ETPS units have to be stopped and the environmental clearance sho-uld be obtained. Otherwise all the process to obtain EC has to be commenced afresh,” say the minutes of the committee meeting held in July last week.
However, the decommissioning of the plant has created uncertainty for the officers and the staff working in the plant over their future. The Tangedco board directed that the existing officers and the staff should be “beneficially utilised elsewhere without affecting their seniority and other benefits as being available to them now.”
