Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) is a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

-fired

electric power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many power s ...

located at Yadlapur D(Shaktinagar) in the

Raichur district Raichur District is an administrative district in the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located in the northeast part of the state and is bounded by Yadgir district in the north, Bijapur district, Karnataka, Bijapur and Bagalkot district in the n ...

of the state of

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It is operated by the

Karnataka Power Corporation Limited Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (or KPCL) is a company owned by the government of Karnataka, and is engaged in generating electrical power in the state of Karnataka in India. The modes for generation of electric power are hydroelectric, Geo ...

(KPCL) and was the first thermal power plant to be set up in the state. The power station was commissioned during various periods from 1985 and it accounts for about 70% of the total electricity generated in

Establishment

The project to construct the

thermal power station A thermal power station, also known as a thermal power plant, is a type of power station in which the heat energy generated from various fuel sources (e.g., coal, natural gas, nuclear fuel, etc.) is converted to electrical energy. The heat ...

was finalized in 1978 after an MOU was signed between KPCL and the Karnataka State Electricity Board. TCE Consulting Engineers Ltd., a

Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest business conglomerate, with products and services in over 160 countries, and operations in 100 c ...

company was appointed as the consultants for the project. The project involved two stages: Stage I, in which Units 1 and 2 were expected to be installed and Stage II, Units 3 and 4. each unit was expected to have an installed capacity of 210 MW. An area of 300 hectares was allocated for the units. Unit I of the plant was completed in March 1985, with Unit II following in March 1986. The construction of Unit III was started in 1986 and completed in March 1991 and the Unit IV was started in 1989 and completed in September 1994, thereby completing the Stage II. The total cost of Stage I of the project was

Rs. Rupee (, ) is the common name for the currencies of India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Afri ...

4,030,000,000 and of the Stage II was

9,830,000,000. The generators were supplied by

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) is an Indian Public Sector Undertakings in India, central public sector undertaking and the largest government-owned electrical/ industrial technology company. It is owned by the Government of Indi ...

and the

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...

s by Kraftwerk Union AG (KWU) and

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group traces its origins to the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company that existed from 1870 to 194 ...

. In 1996, a further expansion of the plant was carried out, with an investment of

15,450,000,000. Units 5 and 6 (each of 210 MW) were installed within three years. Unit 7 (210 MW) which was completed within a record time of 25 months, was installed at the end of the year 2002 The total installed capacity of the power plant is 1,470 MW (7 x 210 MW). , Unit 8, with an installed capacity of 250 MW, is being constructed and is expected to be operational by September 2009. Stage I (units 1 and 2) costing Rs. 403 crores in 1986. Stage II (units 3 and 4) costing Rs. 983 crores in 1994. Stage III (units 5 and 6) costing Rs. 1545 crores in 1999. Stage IV (unit 7) costing Rs. 613 crores in 2002. Stage IV (unit 8) costing Rs. 945 crores in 2010

Raw materials

RTPS uses coal for generation of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

. Its daily requirement of coal is about 20,000 metric tons, when running at full capacity, which is delivered from Western Coalfields Ltd. and Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd. The coal supplied is sampled using a computerized system and sent to the laboratory for testing. This ensures that the proper grade of coal is used. The plant has also started to use washed coal, due to its lower ash content. The plant's cooling water is pumped from the

Krishna River The Krishna River in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau is the third-longest in India, after the Ganga, Ganga and Godavari. It is also the fourth-largest in terms of water inflows and river basin area in India, after the Ganga, Indus and Godav ...

nearby.

Electricity production

The coal is pulverized and fed into furnaces that convert water into steam. This steam runs the turbines to generate electricity. Units 1 to 7, each can produce 5.04 MU of energy per day and Unit 8 can produce 6 MU per day, hence the plant can produce 41.28 MU of energy per day when it is functioning at full capacity.

Issues

RTPS generates about 1.5 million tonnes of

fly ash Coal combustion products (CCPs), also called coal combustion wastes (CCWs) or coal combustion residuals (CCRs), are byproducts of burning coal. They are categorized in four groups, each based on physical and chemical forms derived from coal combust ...

annually which causes environmental problems. 20% of the ash produced is wet

bottom ash Bottom ash is part of the non- combustible residue of combustion in a power plant, boiler, furnace, or incinerator. In an industrial context, it has traditionally referred to coal combustion and comprises traces of combustibles embedded in for ...

which is let into the ash bund. Though considered safer than fly-ash, bottom ash has also been found to contain

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which can be dangerous to public health. The fly-ash which gets generated during the burning of coal disperses into the air and hence pollutes the atmosphere. This gets deposited on the surrounding land, thereby making the land infertile. The fly-ash may also cause breathing problems for humans. RTPS has taken steps to ensure that fly-ash gets precipitated out of the air by using

electrostatic Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies slow-moving or stationary electric charges. Since classical times, it has been known that some materials, such as amber, attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word (), mean ...

elements in the furnaces, but about 2% of fly-ash gets into the atmosphere. The fly-ash is disposed of by converting it into a wet slurry and dumping it into vacant tracts of land (which become what are known as ash-ponds). This is not environment friendly and hence RTPS has come up with ways to make better use of fly-ash. It has entered into a collaboration with the Indo-Norwegian Environment Programme (INEP) and has set up a technology demonstration center called CASHUTEC (Center for Ash Utilization and Environment Conservation) near its plant. CASHUTEC demonstrates different uses for fly ash; mainly its use in the construction sector for making bricks, blocks and mosaic tiles.

References

{{Power Plants of Karnataka Coal-fired power stations in Karnataka Buildings and structures in Raichur district 1985 establishments in Karnataka Energy infrastructure completed in 1985 20th-century architecture in India