Tata Power adds 250 MW capacity

Tata Power Company (TPC), India's largest private power utility, has commercialised the 250 mega watt (MW) unit 8 of its Trombay Thermal Power Station (TTPS) in Chembur near Mumbai.

The Unit 8 will operate on imported Indonesian coal and will enhance the generation capacity of the Trombay plant to 1600 MW from the current capacity of 1350 MW. The unit attained full load of 250 MW on March 26 and completed 72 hours of full load trial operation, yesterday.

"Tata Power has been in the forefront to supply uninterrupted quality power to the city of Mumbai, and the addition of this unit further reiterates the company’s commitment to enhance power supply to growing needs of the consumers,” said Prasad R. Menon, managing director, Tata Power.

The Rs1066 crore invested project was started a few years ago, as part of TPC's plans to add 5500 mega watt capacity.

For the last 4-5 years, Maharashtra experiences a power shortage of 4500-5000 MW during summer. Mumbai also has a power shortage of 700-800 MW during the summer period of March to May.

Tata Power first synchronized the unit with the grid during mid-January and coal firing commenced during early March and full load attained on March 26. The commissioning of the unit will help in bridging the ever increasing demand and supply of power for the city of Mumbai, said a company release.

Tata Power, which has 124 mega watt of wind power generation capacity, is also adding another 73 MW at an investment of over Rs600 crore. These projects implemented by Enercon are due for commissioning in March-April period, and about 17 MW is in Maharashtra, said sources.

In a separate statement, Tata Power said its strategic electronics division (SED) has bagged Rs 182.46 crore order from Bharat Electronics to manufacture ‘16 Akash Launchers’ for India's defence forces. To launchers have to be delivered in next 33 months. Since 1991, Tata Power SED has been engaged with the Akash Missile program and in 2005, the division delivered the Air Force version of the Akash launcher as their first integrated design-to-manufacturing project, test firing a missile in 18 months from the date of order placement, said the release.