Nalco regulates power supply to smelter on dwindling coal stock

The captive power plant of National Aluminium Company (Nalco) in Angul has started regulating power supply to the smelter, located next to it, owing to acute coal crisis.

The Nalco CPP has reached super critical condition where it has only two days coal supply.

The power supply to the Nalco smelter plant will be regulated till the coal stock of its captive power plant (CPP) stabilizes.

“The CPP is currently feeding 740-750 MW of power to the smelter complex as against the normal requirement of 810 MW needed to run 960 pots. However, there has been no cut in aluminum output despite the short supply of power”, said K S Shreedharan, executive director, Nalco.

He said, the coal supply from the Mahanadi Coalfield Ltd (MCL) has been less than the requirement to run all the units of CPP at optimum level.

He, however, clarified that the fire at the rapid loading system at Nalco's linked Bharatpur coal mine has not hit coal supply as loading of the dry fuel is being carried out through other means. This has been possible due to perfect coordination among the Railways, MCL and Nalco authorities, he claimed.There was a big fire at the rapid loading system at the Bharatpur coal mine under MCL's command area on Tuesday.

Out of the nine 120 MW units in Nalco's CPP, two units are now shut down due to maintenance and other reasons. An average of 740 MW of power is produced from the seven working units. The eighth unit will be on stream after the coal stock situation improves, said Shreedharan.

Sources said, though MCL meets its annual coal supply commitment to Nalco, the supply is not evenly distributed. In some months it is low and in other months it is on the higher side. As a result, in most part of the year, the coal stock of the company is not more than three days supply.

While the company requires 18,000 to 20,000 tonnes of coal everyday to build up its stock, the present supply is 14 to 15,000 tonnes per day.

Nalco's smelter plant has 960 working pots, out of which 740-745 pots are presently operational due to short supply of power. The daily aluminium production stands at about 1200 tonnes.

However, Nalco is now eyeing on more coal supply from MCL so that they can build up stock and produce more power by operating eight units of its CPP.