Bihar to get 426 MW additional power from NTPC

The additional power will take Bihar’s average daily scheduled allocation beyond 5,000 MW from Central sectors, the officials said. At present, it gets around 4,575 MW.

Bihar will get 426 Megawatts (MW) of additional electricity from the National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC’s) Barh super thermal power plant (STPP) and the Bharatiya Rail Bijlee Company Limited (BRBCL) at Aurangabad, which will begin commercial operations shortly, said NTPC officials.

At present, units 4 and 5 of 660 MW each are in commercial operation. (Ht File)

The additional power will take Bihar’s average daily scheduled allocation beyond 5,000 MW from Central sectors, the officials said. At present, it gets around 4,575 MW.

The commercial operation of the 660 MW unit I of the NTPC Barh plant will begin from Friday. The trial run of this unit was successfully done on October 30. Bihar will get 401 MW power share from this unit, while the remaining 40% power will be shared among beneficiary states like Odisha, Jharkhand and Sikkim.

This is the third unit of the Barh project to begin commercial operation. At present, units 4 and 5 of 660 MW each are in commercial operation. With this, the total generation capacity of NTPC Barh will go up to 1,980 MW.

“The erection, testing and optimisation activities of the remaining two 660 MW units of Barh are in advance stage and are likely to be commissioned in the next financial year,” said NTPC spokesperson Vishwanath Chandan.

The public sector power generation company also completed successful trial run of its 250 MW fourth and final unit of the BRBCL plant on November 10. It is yet to announce the date for commencement of commercial operation. Bihar will get 25 MW power from this unit while the remaining 90% will go to the railways, said the officials quoted above.

A 250 MW unit 9 of NTPC’s Barauni thermal power station (BTPS) also began commercial operation from November 1.

The NTPC eastern region-1 has an installed power generation capacity of 9,960 MW across eight projects in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, while another 4,490 MW is under construction, said a communique issued by the company.

The NTPC group currently has an installed capacity of 67,657.5 MW across 74 power stations, including 31 renewable and hydro projects. The group has over 16 gigawatts (GW) of capacity under-construction, including five GW of renewable energy projects, said the communique.

“The commercial operation of third unit of the Barh plant is a major milestone,” said SN Tripathi, executive director and head of project, NTPC-Barh.

“The NTPC is proud of team Barh, which has delivered the third unit with utmost dedication after having worked continuously under unprecedented challenging times during lockdown and the COVID-19 restrictions. Our team Barh has worked diligently for long hours, together with associates, to ensure that all modifications and other related activities are done properly and successfully,” said Praveen Saxena, regional executive director, NTPC, eastern region 1.