NTPC's first plant in Maharashtra's Mouda district may run up to its full capacity within next couple of months as it has been assured new coal supply arrangement by Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL), an official said.
Currently, NTPC's Mouda facility, about 40 kms from here, gets coal supply from Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) in Odisha, and due to the long distance of over 600 kms, power generation cost has shot up owing to high transportation expenses, Group General Manager V Thangapandian told PTI here yesterday.
The generation cost which is currently Rs 3.90 a unit will come down drastically to nearly Rs 2.50, which will boost the demand, he said.
"We have been assured coal supply of 17 lakh tonnes by WCL from its Majri mines in Chandrapur district, which is roughly 160 kms and infrastructure for transport like railway siding will be ready within two months," Thangapandian said.
There are two generating units of 500 MW each currently on stream at the Mouda plant. But of late, due to low demand from farms and domestic sector and relatively high cost, the plant is not functioning upto its full capacity.
The Mouda plant has a power purchase agreement with the state government for 350 MW.
NTPC, country's biggest power producer with a power generation capacity of 43,143 MW, has plants at Korba in Chhattisgarh where generation cost is as low as 95 paise and at Vindhyachal and Sipat, it is around Rs 1.50 a unit, he said.
Looking to cater the power needs, NTPC is going ahead with stage II at Mouda under which two more units of super critical 660 MW each would be set up by May and November of 2016, respectively, the official said.
Work on these plans is progressing at a fast pace. On the national scenario, NTPC has set goal to achieve the production target of 1.28 lakh MW by year 2032, Thangapandian said.
The Maharatna PSU has already forayed into solar power and produces 95 MW thorough it.
NTPC has recently agreed to start the biggest 1,000 MW solar power facility in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh and the AP government has allocated land for it, he added.
