Union Minister of Railways and Coal, Piyush Goyal, dedicated coal-based and solar power projects to the nation on 4 March 2019.
The projects include 1,000 MW coal-based thermal power station of Neyveli TamilNadu Power (NTPL), a joint venture (JV) between NLC India and Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) and 150 MW solar power projects of NLC India situated at Ramanathapuram and Virudhanagar districts.
The 2x500 MW coal-fired thermal power project of NTPL is a JV between NLCIL & TANGEDCO with an equity participation of 89:11.
Apart from having coal linkage from Mahanadi Coal Fileds (MCL) and Eastern Coal Fields (ECL) the plant uses imported coal to meet additional coal requirements.
Once Talabira Mines start functioning, this plant will get coal from NLCIL’s own mines. The plant also uses lignite from NLCIL mines by around 10 percent of its coal requirements by blending lignite and coal.
The commercial operations of Unit-I & Il were declared on 18 June 2015 and 29 August 2015 respectively.
Tamil Nadu is the sole beneficiary of 150 MW renewable power plants of Virudhanagar and Ramanathapuram districts.
So far, NLCIL has installed 591 MW solar power and 51 MW wind power plants in various parts of Tamil Nadu. Also, 759 MW solar power project is under execution in the state.
NLCIL has an installed capacity of 4,784.50 MW of power with a pan- India presence, of which 3,890 MW thermal power and 642 MW of renewable power projects are in Tamil Nadu and TANGEDCO is the major beneficiary. Furthermore, 2,980 MW of thermal power plant and 776.5 MW of solar power plants are under construction.
NLCIL has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Tamil Nadu for setting up various mine and power projects with an investment of around Rs 23,800 crore during the Global Investors Meet held in Chennai in January 2019.
