NTPC commissions 10 Mw solar plant at Kaniha

The 10 Mw solar power plant of NTPC Ltd located within the site of its 3000 Mw coal-fired station at Kaniha, near Talcher, has been synchronised and is ready for commercial operations.

Arup Roy Choudhury, chairman and managing director, NTPC declared the solar plant ready for commercial operations from the company's project monitoring centre in New Delhi.

Roy Choudhury congratulated the employees of NTPC-Kaniha for their efforts and team spirit.

“The10 Mw solar photo voltaic plant spread across 45.2 acres of land is another step in its commitment towards a broad base generation mix by evaluating conventional and alternate sources of energy”, said a company release.

Arvind Kumar, regional executive director (eastern region-II), V B Fadnavis, executive director of NTPC-Kaniha and other senior officials of the company, who were present at the site, spoke on the steps taken for successful implementation of the project.NTPC has already signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) for sale of power from this solar project.The power generated from our solar plant will be sold in bundled form along with thermal power at a price of Rs 6-7 per unit.Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) had bagged the contract from NTPC for erecting the solar power plant within NTPC Kaniha complex. The installation cost was estimated at Rs 60 crore.

Presently, NTPC has commissioned four solar power projects, Andaman Solar (5Mw), Dadri Solar (5 Mw), Ramagundam Solar (10 Mw) and Talcher Kaniha (10 Mw). With this, the installed power capacity of NTPC has risen to 42,974 MW which includes 17 coal based, seven gas based, seven joint ventures and four renewable energy plants.

It may be noted that in April 2011, state owned bulk power purchaser Gridco had entered into a PPA for purchase of 10 Mw of solar power.

Gridco would purchase 5 Mw of power from NTPC's Dadri solar power plant in Uttar Pradesh and 5 Mw from the Faridabad solar station in Haryana.