Agartala: After the month-long shut down, Palatana power plant, the North East’s biggest power project, is expected to start power generation by Friday, according to official sources here on Thursday.
While ONGC is ready to supply gas, the main fuel to run the 280 MW power plant, the BHEL, which has been looking after technical aspects, gave its consent to put the turbine on for power generation.
We have already informed the OTPC authority about our preparation for supplying gas to the project and power generation is expected to get underway by Friday, said Asset Manager of ONGC, Tripura Asset VP Mahawar.
Even if Palatana starts power generation immediately after lot of ‘homework’, it would not be possible to produce power beyond 200 MW due to lack of power evacuation facilities, according to sources.
Reports said there is no problem in evacuating power from Palatana to Silchar as 245 km transmission line has already been put in place. However, erection of transmission line from Silchar to Bongaigaon (414 km) ran into rough weather after few land owners approached the court seeking a stay.
As many as 1081 towers should be erected to link up 400 KV transmission line from Silchar to Bonagaigoan for evacuation of power.
Construction of four towers has been stalled after a court issued stayed notice to North-East Power Transmission Company Ltd (NETC) in between Silchar to Bongaigoan. Now, the NETC would not be able to erect the 400 KV line from Silchar to Bonagaigoan untill the legal bottleneck is over, according to sources.
Though the evacuation of power remains a major cause of concern for OTPC, it wants to switch on turbine at the earliest. There are indications the turbines will start rolling today night or tomorrow morning itself.
Meanwhile, the OTPC plans to go for trial run of 2nd unit of the Palatana power project by using the existing gas boosters. Repairing of two faulty gas boosters is still on at the BHEL workshop in Hyderabad. Sources said, the BHEL has already initiated a process to bring some spare parts from Germany to re-fix them on the faulty gas boosters.
