Amid soaring energy demand, Vallur unit revival gets delayed

CHENNAI: Even as the State witnessed a steep increase in power demand, one of the three 500-MW units of the Vallur Thermal Power Station — under forced outage since January 3 this year — is likely to commence generation only in July due to stator replacement. With the stator repair works of Unit 2 likely to take four to five months, NTECL, which operates the plant, is planning to borrow a spare stator from Aravali Power Company Pvt Ltd in Haryana to revive the 500 MW unit under outage, Tangedco sources said.

Tangedco is supposed to get 1,068 MW as its share from the 1,500-MW Vallur plants but is getting only 712 MW as its share. According to Tangedco sources, after attempts to revive Unit-2 failed, the BHEL, the original equipment manufacturer, certified that the present stator cannot be used as it failed the test. The stator is being sent to BHEL works for repair which may take four to five months.

To revive Unit-2 early, NTECL is now borrowing a spare stator from APCPL, Jhajjar in Haryana, which is expected to reach by May 30. "The revival of Unit-2 may take around 30 days," an NTECL official said.

A senior Tangedco official said for nearly 100 days, two units – Unit-1 and Unit-2 of the Vallur – were under outage. Unit-1, which was shut down due to a major fire incident on August 11, 2023, was revived on April 11, 2024. "Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant plans to shut its 1,000-MW Unit-2 for refuelling from May 17 for 65 days during the peak summer period. The delay in the revival of the Vallur Unit-2 will force us to procure energy from the market to meet the demand," the official said.