The first unit of 250 MW of Barauni Thermal Power Station, is expected to start commercial generation by the end of this month, a senior BTPS official said today. The Barauni Thermal Power Station is wholly owned by the Bihar government. Two units of 250 MW each is being built. "We have been carrying out commissioning activity for past couple of months.
First, the 250 MW plant was fired up with oil and ran the unit up to 35 MW and later on the intervening night of January 10-11 (2018), the plant was fired with coal and ran it (unit) to its full load capacity of 250 MW," BTPS general manager A K Sinha told PTI over phone. Sinha further clarified that "We stopped the plant after running it to its full load capacity for few minutes in order to ensure whether or not the plant, its machines and equipment are working efficiently and properly to make it operational... Defects and deviations have been found during trial but we hope to rectify all these defects at the earliest to make the plant commercially operational by the end of January." Sinha said that the second unit of 250 MW is also expected to start commercial generation in next three months time. The entire 500 MW from two units would go to state government's kitty as the units are owned by Bihar State Power Generation Company Ltd, the GM added. Nitish Kumar government, which has put the energy sector on top of its agenda for development, has been reviewing the progress of energy sector including the BTPS work from time to time. The state drew over 4000 MW in 2017 against 600-700 MW of power that it used to draw in 2005-06 when Nitish Kumar took over the reins. Though, most of the power supply is available through scheduled allocation of around 2900 MW from central sector and power purchase, from open market.
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