Bihar to get 405 MW more power from NTPC by May

The state’s average daily allocation from the NTPC will go up to 6,950 MW as against a total of 7,350 MW (approx) from central sectors, including 400 MW hydel power from the NHPC, after the commissioning of the fourth unit of the Barh plant by May this year.

PATNA: The state will soon get over 405 MW of additional power to add to its present allocation of 6,560 MW from NTPC plants as the fourth unit of 5 x 660 MW supercritical thermal power project of NTPC Barh was successfully synchronised with the national grid on Sunday, said NTPC spokesperson Vishwanath Chandan.

The Barh power plant. (HT Photo)

The state’s average daily allocation from the NTPC will go up to 6,950 MW as against a total of 7,350 MW (approx) from central sectors, including 400 MW hydel power from the NHPC, after the commissioning of the fourth unit of the Barh plant by May this year.

Bihar’s peak load demand had gone up to 6,700 MW during the summers last year.

Work on the fifth unit of the NTPC Barh plant is expected to be completed by the end of the next financial year (2023-24). Three of the five units, each of 660 MW, of the ambitious Barh power project, have already been commissioned.

“Under the synchronisation process, the plant was connected to the grid to see the load factor and to ensure whether all other aspects of the plant were working as per the mandatory protocol. The plant will be ‘commissioned’ within 90 days and run for 72 hours continuously on full load before being finally declared fit for commercial generation after it meets all parameters related to the functioning of its turbine, boiler, water inflow and outflow, etc., as per norms laid down by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA),” said Chandan.

The five units of the Barh plant are being constructed on 3,200 acres (approx) land at Barh sub-division in Patna, at a revised cost of over ₹21,000 crore, said NTPC officials.

Former Prime Minister, the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had laid the foundation stone of the Barh super thermal power project (STPP) on June 5, 1999. However, actual work on the project began in August 2004, after cabinet clearance.

The Barh project has an installed capacity of 3,300 MW, of which three units of stage I is of 1,980 MW (3 x 660 MW unit each) and two units of stage II of 1,320 MW (2 x 660 MW unit each). Work on units II and III is underway while that of unit 1 of stage I and two units (IV and V) of stage II have already been completed.

Units IV and V of stage II were commissioned on November 15, 2014, and February 18, 2016, respectively, and unit I of stage I on November 10, 2021.

The Barh STPP was initially conceptualised as a (3 x 660MW) 1,980 MW project (stage I), at an estimated cost of ₹11,000 crore, with a completion deadline by 2010, said NTPC officials. However, an inordinate delay in execution of the project by Technopromexport (TPE), a Russian firm, led to conceptualisation of stage II of the project, said officials familiar with the development.

The Barh plant draws water from the river Ganga, while it gets coal from the mines of the Central Coalfields Limited CCL in Jharkhand.

The NTPC eastern region-I, comprising Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, has a present power generation capacity of 10,510 MW across six thermal power projects in Bihar and one each in Jharkhand (Patratu) and West Bengal (Farakka). It will add another 3,720 MW when the 3 x 800 MW units at Patratu and 2 x 660 MW at Barh are commissioned.