Context
- Power giant National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Ltd’s move to transfer fly ash from its 3,000-megawatt Rihand Super Thermal Power Station in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra to cement plants is a step in the right direction.
Key Details
- The move may help address the issue of overabundance of fly ash piling up in Singrauli-Sonbhadra region, located at the boundary of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Singrauli-Sonbhadra region
- It has at least nine major thermal power stations including three NTPC-owned plants — Rihand (3,000 MW), Vindhyachal (4,760 MW) and Singrauli (2,000 MW).
- More than half the capacity in Singrauli-Sonbhadra region is relatively new and was added in the last 10 years. More capacity addition has led to an increase in amount of coal consumption and subsequent fly ash generation in the region.
Back to Basics
- Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh together account for about 51 gigawatt of installed coal power capacity, half of which is located in the Singrauli-Sonbhadra region.
- Both UP and MP are in the top four states in the country in terms of fly ash generation and in the bottom four states in terms of its percentage utilisation, according to the Central Electricity Authority’s latest ash generation and utilisation report for 2018-19.
Facts for Mains
- Power plants currently generate about 200 million tonnes of ash.