India’s largest power producer, state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), has been granted long-term coal supply under the Shakti linkage policy for its Khargone power plant.
The decision was taken by the standing linkage committee (SLC) in a review meeting held last month.
Under the provision, the plant would be supplied additional coal from the mines of South Eastern Coalfields Ltd. (SECL) and Northern Coalfields Ltd. (NCL) in order to fulfil its requirements.
Besides, it will also result in effective savings in transportation cost, as these mines are closer to the plant compared to the captive coal mine of NTPC.
The Khargone Super Thermal Power Station in Madhya Pradesh has a generation capacity of 1,320 MW (2×660 MW). The plant was sourcing coal from NTPC’s captive mine, Pakri Barwadih, in Jharkhand.
Incidentally, due to the long distance transportation, the plant was unable to compete in the merit order for coal despatches, and was thus struggling to meet its generating schedule.
To meet the shortfall, the power plant was provided coal from the mines of SECL and NCL under the policy of flexible utilisation of domestic coal, but the supply was not commensurate in view of total requirement.
Consequently, the issue was raised by the Union Ministry of Power for grant of long-term coal linkage to one of the 660 MW units of Khargone plant under the Shakti scheme, which was approved by the SLC.
Decision on remaining agendas
1. The SLC has agreed upon swapping of coal linkage for Dr. NTTPS power station of Andhra Pradesh Power Generating Company (APGENCO) considering the logistics convenience.
The plant’s existing linkage of 3 mn t coal will now be transferred from Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) to Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL).
2. The committee has also decided to extend the bridge linkage for the Mejia and Chandrapura plants of the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) for another two years.
Bridge linkage is a temporary arrangement of coal supply till the time the allocated captive coal mines become operational.
Accordingly, coal would be supplied under this linkage for the extended period, but the quantity would be proportionately reduced as per the volumes that come into production from the Tubed block, which is a captive coal mine of DVC.
However, similar requests for extension made by the state power generation company of Uttar Pradesh was deferred for further discussion till Jun’22.
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