New 600-Megawatt Facility to Replace Tamil Nadu's Faltering Ennore Plant by 2015

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In India, Tamil Nadu's 40-year-old, 450-megawatt (MW) Ennore power plant is now unable to generate power at its optimum level because of years of wear and tear, according to the Tamil Nadu government.

This situation has caused the chief minister to order the decommissioning of the plant and the construction of a new ultra-modern thermal power plant on the existing 90-acre site. The new $720 million plant will have a generating capacity of 600-MW and will take over power generation by 2015 as the old plant is phased out.

The existing Ennore plant will continue to operate until new power projects are commissioned. These include the North Chennai thermal power extension project, which is a 1,200-MW (2 x 600 MW) plant, and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Ltd-National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) 1,500 MW joint venture project at Vallur.

The decommissioning of the old Ennore plant will be undertaken by the successful bidder for the new project. A detailed project report, environmental clearances, a coal feed supply linkage and the finalization of bidding needs to be in place before construction on the new plant can be scheduled. Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) will engage with the federal Ministry of Environment and Forests for the crucial environmental clearance.

The new plant, while generating more power than the old plant, will consume less coal and will be environmentally friendly.

TANGEDCO is reported to be opening bidding on another 600-MW project this month. The Ennore Annexe project is scheduled to begin construction by June 2012 and be completed by December 2015. Both projects will draw coal supplies from the Mandakini-B coal block in Orissa, which was allotted to Tamil Nadu in 2007 and has a possible reserve of 1.2 billion tons of coal. Other mineral companies will share in the coal resource.

Some imported coal will also be used to feed the two power projects and the boilers will be designed to be able to use a blend of coal from both sources.

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