Nathpa Jhakri, the country’s largest hydroelectric project located in Himachal Pradesh, has established a new milestone of 7,610 million units (MU) electricity generation during the last financial year, which ended on Saturday.
“The power generation this year is not only 470 MU more than last year’s record production, but also more than the targets assigned by the central power ministry,” said an official of the power station here today.
R P Singh, chief of Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd (SJVNL), which runs the power station, attributes the high power generation to optimum utilisation of available water and efficient management of machines of the project. “By reducing the average maintenance time from normal ten days to eight days the availability of the machines was ensured for peaking power generation throughout the year,” Singh said.
He said the life of the project’s machines and their silt-bearing capacity had increased manifolds as a result of the application of hard coatings to under water parts of giant turbines.
The 1,500-Mw mammoth project is built on the Sutlej river located in tribal Kinnaur district.
Since being commissioned in 2003, the Nathpa Jhakri power station the has recorded a 49 per cent increase in generation.
The project supplies power to the power hungry northern grid and includes Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Delhi.
SJVNL is jointly owned by the central and Himachal Pradesh government. Two years ago, the central government sold 10 per cent of its equity in the project.
