Peeping into India’s power plants

Industry experts share their views on the performance of power plants in India

There are several key aspects, which affects the performance of power plants in India. Here, we would be discussing about various measures adopted by the government and companies to boost the functioning of power plants in India and the emission control measures undertaken in such facilities.

Optimisation capacity of Indian power plants
Electricity generation in India have always been mostly achieved through coal-based power plants, a source that is most hazardous to the environment and scarcely available. To that extent coal still remains the dominant source of electricity generation in the country.

According to Anil Kadam, Solution Architect & Marketing – Energy & Utilities and Smart Cities, Schneider Electric India, currently, coal-based power plant account for over 60 per cent of India’s power output while renewables make up for the rest, including hydro.

“However, there has been a notable rise in the renewable power sector, as India joins the global agenda to tackle climate change by shifting towards green energy. Especially with Government of India’s push towards renewable energy sources, and with targets like increasing renewable energy capacity by 2022 to 175 gigawatts, the sectors have witnessed prominent strides towards greener and cleaner forms of power generation in the past few years,” he says.

Kadam further adds that in today’s digital world, an optimal power plant relies on valuable and accurate operational data in order to ensure assets are running efficiently with minimal downtime and by predicting failures ahead of time. Power companies are increasingly leveraging existing data generation and collection tools for input into predictive analytics software for early warning notification of potential equipment problems days, weeks, or months before failure.
He believes that all of this is positively attributing to the efforts by the power plants towards driving more efficiency and for achieving cleaner and sustainable environment.

Power plant improvements
Today, there are various technologies available as solutions, which help improve a power plant’s performance. These range from advanced metallurgy, improved engineering calculations, advance manufacturing processes like 3D-printing, sensitive instrumentation, responsive controls, automation, data storage, Internet of Things (IoT), algorithms to analyse data and predict performance/events, and many more.

Kadam says, “At Schneider Electric, our EcoStruxure Power, Plant and Grid Solution is an IoT-enabled architecture, and an innovative platform for better energy management system with latest cyber security standards. Reliability centric asset management, Operator Training Simulator (OTS), Power Plant Performance Analysis, Diagnostics and Optimisation (PADO), cyber security, state-of-the-art process automation, EMCS, and Intelligent Fast Load Shedding Solutions are some of the point solutions under the bigger umbrella of EcoStruxure reference architecture by Schneider Electric, which has helped substantially our Indian power plants and worldwide to increase efficiency and sustainability. It enhances connectivity through real-time operational reliability and smart analytics and provides significant financial benefits to businesses of all sizes and levels.”

Juha Suomi, Area Director, Asia, Fortum eNext says, “To start with, Fortum communicates with the client, the people. Every client is different and their viewpoints and knowledge differ, too. For efficiency optimisation, we have our monitoring tools. We have special customised tools for energy efficiency optimisation process through which we can remodel what would be the best solution. We have been modelling plants for more than 30 years. That’s how we maintain a database, so we know what it is and also we have our own assets and know how they perform optimally.”

Emission issues
India is one of the fastest growing economies and with this growth emission levels are bound to rise. India has planned to bring down emission levels of all old power plants to national standards by 2022. While concerted efforts are being made to combat climate change by way of curtailing emissions, a lot more needs to be done to overcome the problem of air pollution.

Anil Kadam suggests, “Though retrofitting works are under preparation, India’s emission scenario will improve if emission norms for boilers and technology are readily available. This use of technology will not only give an impetus to India’s focus on upgrading its old, inefficient and environment polluting power plants, but also will be instrumental in reducing air pollution. There is a need for a cost-saving and cost-effective solution to comply with the latest NOx emission regulation laid down by the government. This can be done by implementing advanced low-NOx technology at the primary source of emissions i.e. at the boiler combustion. Not only will it reduce emissions, but it will also enhance plant performance and lower operating and maintenance costs.”

He adds that Schneider Electric has a full IT-OT and energy automation solution for efficiently managing to manage FGD (Flue Gas de-sulphuriastion) plants towards attaining a sustainable environment. “We live in a time when the right to breathe clean air – the most fundamental of rights – is in danger around the world. Therefore, in progressive economies like India it is vital to efficiently deploy modern and innovative emission reduction technologies at thermal power stations that strictly adhere to local emission limits and mitigate health impacts of air pollution,” says Kadam.

Products to reduce pollutants from plants
Mridul Chadha, Senior Analyst & Market Advisor, Climate Connect Technologies, says, “The key technologies for power plants are flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) systems for sulphur oxide (SOx) control, and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems for nitrogen oxide (NOx) control. Though these technology groups have been around for a long time, they continue to perform an important de-polluting role in India, and around the world for thermal plants, especially coal. Orders volumes continue to be high across the sector, and will remain so for the long-term.”

Clean energy emission control solutions
Speaking about energy emission control solutions, Chadha says that there are a number of solutions that have been specifically designed with international standards for emissions reductions in mind. These include reducing particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen. All to improve air quality in and around thermal power plants.

The standards increase in stringency for more recent plants, and even more so for those plants to be set up in future. Existing power projects are also required to retrofit suitable emission control devices to align pollution levels with these standards. Following a standards-based approach enables a wider variety of technologies to be considered, rather than mandating specific devices or technologies. This should help plants achieve demonstrably better results.

Environmental regulations
Talking about the environmental regulations to curtail emissions, Chadha suggests that one notable supporting regulation is to allow thermal power plants to pass-through the costs incurred for meeting environment norms.

”Though this will mean an increase in tariffs for the power they generate, it will have a more compelling influenceon upgrading compliance. The direct cost-benefits to plant owners can help to ensure more timely implementation of environmental compliance. Coming from the Central Regulatory Electricity Authority means that this has country-wide, and energy system-wide applicability,” he adds.

He further adds that these measures have been issued to facilitate smoother implementation of standards compliance, and can be very effective. Provided that, the right balance is struck between CERC’s mechanism to assess the impact on tariffs, and certainty in cost recovery for the plant owners. Additional capital and operational costs can be recovered over long and medium-term power purchase agreements, specifically designed for this purpose.

Following a standards-based approach enables a wider variety of technologies to be considered, rather than mandating specific devices or technologies
Mridul Chadha, Senior Analyst & Market Advisor, Climate Connect Technologies

While concerted efforts are being made to combat climate change by way of curtailing emissions, a lot more needs to be done to overcome the problem of air pollution
Anil Kadam, Solution Architect & Marketing- Energy & Utilities and Smart Cities, Schneider Electric India

We have special customised tools for energy efficiency optimisation process through which we can remodel what would be the best solution
Juha Suomi, Area Director, Asia, Fortum eNext