NTPC begins bulk supply of fly ash using new infra from UP cement plants

State-run power giant NTPC on Sunday said it has begun bulk supply of fly ash using newly developed infrastructure at its Rihand project in Uttar Pradesh to distant cement plants.

The development is in line with the NTPC's commitment towards 100 per cent utilisation of fly ash from power plants, the company said in a statement.

"NTPC Ltd has developed an infrastructure at Rihand project in Uttar Pradesh to transport fly ash in bulk to cement plants, located at distance, at a cheaper cost," a company statement said. The infrastructure includes dry ash extraction, loading, weighment systems and silo storage system from station ESP (electrostatic precipitators).

The effort marks the beginning of a new era for the transportation of fly ash from a remote location to a consumption centre, enabling power plants for upgrading the utilization of fly ash with the availability of additional material loading avenues for Indian Railways and accessibility of fly ash to the cement plants in an environment-friendly manner at a competitive price.

During the financial year 2019-20, almost 44.33 million tonnes of fly ash was utilised for various productive purposes, being 73.31 per cent of the ash generated.

Moreover, the company is looking at new avenues of fly ash management like fly ash based geo-polymer road, use of bottom ash as replacement of fine aggregate (sand) in cement concrete.

Also, NTPC has plans to set up fly ash classifier unit for export purposes.

With a total installed capacity of 62.9 GW, NTPC Group has 70 power stations comprising of 24 coal, seven combined cycle gas/liquid fuel, one hydro, 13 renewables along with 25 subsidiary & JV power stations.