November 22, 2008

Gas based combined cycle power plant commissioned at Valuthur

The first stage of the 92.2 MW Valuthur gas based combined cycle power project has commissioned at Valuthur in Tamil Nadu. The capacity of the first stage is 60 MW and the balance 32.2 MW capacity will be commissioned in a month’s time.

Mr Jairam Ramesh union minister of sate for commerce & power and Mr Arcot Veeraswamy power minister of Tamil Nadu were present on the occasion. The project is supplied with gas from a nearby gas field of ONGC and the turbines have been procured from the energy company, Ansaldo. The gas for the project is coming from ONGC wells of Ramnad zone.

Mr Ramesh said that uranium fuel for the 2 x 1000 Mw units at Koodankulam in Tirunelveli district have arrived from Russia and both Russian supplied reactors are likely to come into commercial operation by end of 2009. The plans of the Department of Atomic Energy are to generate 20,000 MW of power by the year 2020 of which 8000 MW are to come from Koodankulam type light water reactors.

He also complimented the TNEB for signing a MoU with BHEL to set up two 800 MW supercritical units at Udangudi in Tuticorin district with a total investment of close to INR 8500 crore. He revealed that the JV agreement between TNEB and BHEL forming the Udangudi Power Corporation Limited has been finalized and will be signed soon. The application for the coal linkage has also been made. The present schedule is to commence work by October 2008.