Chinese units at power plant fail two trial runs
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Panipat, July 26
Following the failure of the two 600 MW Chinese-made units installed at Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Station (RGTPS) at Khedar to complete trial runs, the All-India Power Engineers’ Federation has raised serious doubts about the credibility of the equipment installed there.

The federation lamented that the new power plant could not be commissioned as per the schedule declared by the Haryana Power Generation Corporation (HPGCL) and the Haryana Chief Minster. The unit 1 was to achieve commercial operation by May 7 and the second unit was to commence operation on coal firing by May 10. Both these targets could not be achieved.

Padamjit Singh, chairman of the AIPEF, said before a generator was put to commercial use, it was required to undergo a full load trial run for 14 days out of which 72 hours should be at 100 per cent load. He said the first unit had been put through two trial runs, both of which had proved unsuccessful. The first trial run started on June 11 and ended on June 28. However, during this period the unit could not achieve a generation beyond 440 MW. The 600 MW units with auxiliary consumption of 6 per cent could give net generation of 564 MW against which only 440 MW could be achieved.

During the trial run period between July 4 and 14, the average net MW generation was 433 MW on July 9, 404 MW on July 10, 371 MW on July 11, 417 MW on July 12 and 451 MW on July13. Singh said these figures could not be sustained on July 14 and the unit tripped at 0630 hours, indicating that the trial run had failed. During this trial run the unit could achieve 561 MW for only 12 hours as against the required full load period of 72 hours. Further, the trial run was for only 10 days as against the required 14 days, he said.

The chairman of the federation said the unit was still not in a position to commence commercial operations and the second unit was yet to be put under trial run. He said the two 300 MW units of the Rosa Thermal Station of Reliance Power in Uttar Pradesh had been put to commercial use within 2.5 months of their synchronisation. However, the units at the RGTPS, which were synchronised in December last, were yet to achieve the stage of commercial operations.