Tech glitch again in North Chennai power plant

Though this affected the generation of 810 mw of power, officials assured that alternative arrangements have been made to ensure that power supply to the capital city would remain unaffected by this.

“The first unit of Stage-II that has a capacity of 600 mw and the third unit of Stage-I with a capacity of 210 mw were shutdown owing to puncture in boilers. As a result of shutdown of these two units, 810 mw of power production was affected,” said official sources at NCTPS.

According to officials at the power station, the boiler puncture happened in the early hours of Sunday, which led to the immediate stoppage of power generation. Officials said that the fault is being attended to, and added that the operation would resume by Monday evening.

With a total power generation capacity of 1,830 mw, NCTPS is one of the largest thermal power plants in the State, which mainly caters to the needs of Chennai.

However, power managers said the power supply to the city would not be affected, as alternate arrangements have been made.

Incidentally, the boilers in the same two units were punctured on January 19, which affected the generation of 810 mw. According to sources, while punctures have come to become a routine issue for boilers in Stage-I, which are more than 20 years old, the Stage-II plant is only five years old where the punctures happen allegedly due to poor maintenance.

The thermal power station in Pudhunagar village in Tiruvallur houses three units in the Stage-I plant, each 210 mw, and two units in Stage-II plant (600 mw each).