Supercritical tech to be mandatory in India

India may soon make it mandatory for power companies to switch to energy-efficient supercritical technology for their upcoming coal-fired power projects.

 
The Indian power sector is predominantly based on coal and the country wants to play a major role in global efforts to fight climate change by cutting down emission of greenhouse gases. The coal-based power projectscontribute over 65 per cent of the country's total installed power generation capacity at present.



It is expected that the government may announce a new policy soon for mandatory use of supercritical technology based power projects. As adoption of new technology for all projects is a time-consuming process, the government wants this to start from the 13th Five-Year plan period starting from 2017.

 

Equipment for a large portion of capacity for the 12 th Plan, which covers the years 2012-17, has already been ordered and it is feared that any new regulation for these projects may impact the capacity addition programme.
 

The country's largest power producer, NTPC, has already adopted supercritical technology in a big way. Its first project based on this technology may get partially commissioned next month with the start of 660 mw unit at Sipat. In the 12th Plan, close to 90 per cent of NTPC's capacity is expected to be based on supercritical technology. A few private sector power projects have also ordered these equipment.