TTPS reaches new milestone in power generation

With all five units running for a period of 27 days consecutively, Tuticorin Thermal Power Station (TTPS) has reached a new milestone in power generation after a gap of 11 years.

Since April 4 this year, each of the units with generation capacity of 210 MW, has been in service to cater to the energy demands of people, sources from TTPS told The Hindu here on Tuesday.

It was in 2007, that uninterrupted service from these five units was recorded for 26 consecutive days from April 12.

Adding to its credit, sources said these units contributed to generate a total of 712.06 million units in April, 2018 with a plant load factor of 94.2% and availability factor of 99.4%.

Due to effective management, the feat was achieved despite raw water crisis.

On the performance of the fifth unit, it had a record run of over 100 consecutive days from March 6, 2017 to June 29 in the same year for the eleventh term since it was commissioned in 1992. As for the fourth unit, its generation was uninterrupted for 100 days from June 28 last year and the feat was recorded for the tenth term.

Further, sources said fuel oil consumption achieved a drastic decline in April this year.

The quantity of fuel oil used was 66.34 kilolitres and it is the least amount of consumption of this plant during its 39 year service period.

In April 2003, the plant consumed 118.243 kilolitres of fuel oil, which was used for lighting up the units and to ensure flame stability on wet coal. In order to keep the unit load at 140 MW, fuel oil supplement was required, sources added.