Older thermal power plants to make way for green energy

Chennai

The renewed thrust on green energy has come amid environmental activists’ constant appeal to the Tangedco to scrap its massive coal-based thermal power projects and replace them with solar power, which is clean energy and cheaper. Till now, the State-owned power utility has invested largely in expanding its coal thermal power plant capacity but kept way from setting up solar power projects on its own.

“The installed generation capacity of Tangedco’s own thermal power plants is only 4,320 MW, of which 12 units with an installed generation capacity of 2,520 MW are more than 25 years old and may need to be replaced soon. This government is determined not only to ensure that the State is assured of adequate availability of power but also to ensure that it does not suffer any shortage of power even in the long run. This will be achieved by the addition of adequate green power to its installed generating capacity,” Electricity Minister V Senthilbalaji said while tabling the energy department policy note for 2021-22 in the Assembly.

The Minister said, in order to provide a reliable, sustainable and affordable power supply to all the consumers in the State, the government has prepared a long term plan. “It is proposed to increase the generation capacity by not only taking action for completion of ongoing thermal projects on a war footing but also by increasing the generation capacity from green resources of energy such as solar and wind. As per the principles of the climate change agenda, all efforts will be taken to increase the share of Renewable Energy (RE) in the total energy mix of the State by resolving all the challenges including difficulties related to its integration to the Electricity Grid,” he assured.

On Monday, Tangedco entered into an MoU with Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), a government of India enterprise, to provide advisory services in the areas of renewable energy augmentation. An official release has said, in order to bring down the power purchase cost and to attain self-sufficiency in the power generation, Tangedco plans to add 25,000 MW generation capacity, including 20,000 MW solar, 3,000 MW pumped hydro stations and 2,000 MW gas-based power stations in the next 10 years at an estimated cost of Rs 1.35 lakh crore.