Government has firmed up plans to shut down some 11,000 mw of thermal power generation capacities that are at least 25 years old, instead it will be building bigger plants with total capacity of at least 20,000 mw on the same tract of land at an estimated investment of Rs 70,000 crore. This will result in savings of about Rs 40,000 crore on land acquisition as well infrastructure cost like rail and water linkages along with facilities like ash pond and power evacuation lines. Coal supplied to the old plants would be fed into the units that would replace them.
In the meeting held between the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and state utilities, the road map for shuttering at least 100 old units having capacities ranging from 60 mw to 220 mw was given a preliminary shape, which will be replaced by 30 odd super critical units ranging between 660 mw and 800 mw.
The replacement of old units by new super critical units was being encouraged by the government and the coal ministry has already issued guidelines for automatic transfer of coal linkage from old and inefficient units to new super critical units. Coal supplied to the old plants would be fed into the units that would replace them.
It is estimated that a total capacity of about 36,000 mw in the country is more than 25 years old and this units should be replaced by new super critical units. Though, few plants which have undergone renovation and maintenance will be allowed few more years to run. According to data of CEA, replacing sub-critical, old and inefficient thermal units with super critical units would enable effective utilisation of already available scarce resources like land, water and coal.