NTPC: AN OVERVIEW (NATIONAL THERMAL POWER CORPORATION) India s largest power company, NTPC was set up in 1975 to accelerate

power develop ment in India. NTPC is emerging as a diversified power major with presence in th e entire value chain of the power generation business. Apart from power generati on, which is the mainstay of the company, NTPC has already ventured into consult ancy, power trading, ash utilization and coal mining. NTPC became a Maharatna co mpany in May, 2010, one of the only four companies to be awarded this status. . The total installed capacity of the company is 34,854 MW (including JVs) with 15 coal based and 7 gas based stations, located across the country. In addition un der JVs, 5 stations are coal based & another station uses naphtha/LNG as fuel. The company has set a target to have an installed power generating capacity of 1 , 28,000 MW by the year 2032. The capacity will have a diversified fuel mix comp rising 56% coal, 16% Gas, 11% Nuclear and 17% Renewable Energy Sources(RES) incl uding hydro. By 2032, non fossil fuel based generation capacity shall make up ne arly 28% of NTPC s portfolio. NTPC has been operating its plants at high efficiency levels. Although the compa ny has 17.75% of the total national capacity, it contributes 27.40% of total pow er generation due to its focus on high efficiency. In October 2004, NTPC launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO) consisting of 5 .25% as fresh issue and 5.25% as offer for sale by Government of India. NTPC thu s became a listed company in November 2004 with the Government holding 89.5% of the equity share capital. In February 2010, the Shareholding of Government of In dia was reduced from 89.5% to 84.5% through Further Public Offer. The rest is he ld by Institutional Investors and the Public. At NTPC, People before Plant Load Factor is the mantra that guides all HR relate d policies. NTPC has been awarded No.1, Best Workplace in India among large orga nizations and the best PSU for the year 2010, by the Great Places to Work Instit ute, India Chapter in collaboration with The Economic Times. The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is deeply ingrained in NTPC's cul ture. Through its expansive CSR initiatives, NTPC strives to develop mutual trus t with the communities that surround its power stations.

NTPC (DADRI) STATION AT A GLANCE:NTPC Dadri is one of the premier unit model of NTPC generating total of 2649.78 MW, which began its operation from 1991.It is known for its unique feature of be ing three in one unit as it has 2 coal based station of 1820 MW (4X210 MW + 2X49 0 MW), one gas based station 829.78 MW (4 GT X 130.19 MW + 2 ST X 154.51 MW) and 1500 MW HVDC converter station which now belongs to Power Grid Corporation. It also has countries largest switch yard and, largest dry ash disposal system, uni que storage of ash by constructing ash mound and converting it to green belt by diverse species of plantation. Towards sustainable development and Eco friendly power generation, the station h

as taken up task under the green house gas pollution prevention project (GEP pro ject) in association with the centre for power efficiency and environmental prot ection CENPEEP-NTPC & USAID. The station has bagged ISO 14001 &ISO9002 certifica tion during the same financial year 1999-2000, certified by agency of internatio nal repute M/s DNV Germany respectively. COAL TRANSPORTATION AND HANDLING SYSTEM:NTPC Dadri is a rail fed power station and the coal supply is linked with Piparw ar block of north Karanpura coal fields Ltd in Bihar state, located 1200Km away from the power station from Dadri railway station. The coal wagons are brought t o NTPC siding and unloading points through railway track which is totally electr ified and constructed by NTPC Dadri. The station has facility for receiving coal through BOBR rakes at track hopper. There are two streams in CHP, each having a capacity of 1400 MT/hour. As the station is a rail fed station it is expected t o maintain a coal stock of approximately one month. The stock yard has a capacit y of 5 lacs MT and coal can be stored/ retrieved through a Stacker Reclaimer. Fr om track hopper or stock yard, coal is fed into coal bunkers through conveyors a fter being crushed to a size of less than 20 mm. Since April 1997, the station h as also starting receiving washed coal from washery set up at Piperwar in Bihar. Effective dust suppression and dust extraction systems are installed to minimiz e the fugitive dust emission during the unloading and handling of coal.

ASH HANDLING SYSTEM:Station is first in the country to adopt Dry ash handling system, handling about 1.5 million tons of ash per annum. The system is highly eco friendly and redres ses all the negative environmental effects Fly ash and Bottom ash is handled sep arately and taken to ash mound on conveyors from respective storage bins. The co nstruction of ash mound is unique. The mound shell caters to the storage of ash for the entire plant life and would be constructed to a final height of 55 meter s with 140 acres as the top surface area. Ash mound construction requires only 1 /3rd land requirement and extremely low water requirement of 2% in comparison to the conventional wet ash disposal system. Nature is recreated on the finished m ound slopes by extensive turfing, tree plantation etc. Finished mound slopes can be commercially exploited to generate revenue.

Coal Unit

Gas Unit

TOPICS SPECIFICATIONS TOPICS SPECIFICATIONS STATION CAPACITY:-

TYPE OF FUEL:COAL SOURCE:-

SOURCE OF WATER:BOILER SPECIFICATION:- 1820 MW (4 x 210 MW + 2 x 490 MW) Coal Based Piparwar block Of North Karanpura coal fields in Bihar situated about 1200 Km fr om station Upper Ganga Canal Or MAT Branch Canal MAKE-BHEL(CE Design) TYPE - Natural circulation, Balance Draft Double Pass, Single Drum, Pulverized c oal/oil corner fired, Dry bottom type STATION CAPACITY:-

TYPE OF FUEL:GAS SOURCE:-

SOURCE OF WATER:829.78 MW (4GT X 130.19 + 2ST X 154.1 MW) Natural Gas, Alternate HSD From Hazira through HBJ Pipeline

Upper Ganga Canal Or MAT Branch Canal

_____

DEMINERALISATION PLANT

SOURCE OF RAW WATER:NTPC Dadri is taking raw water from Upper Ganga Canal and Mat Branch Canal, if t he canals are not available in any case, then they take water from bore wells (4 8 in numbers) present in the plant. Before demineralization of raw water, some pre-treatments are needed to be done. The need is there because the low land surface waters will have a significant b acterial load and may also contain algae, suspended solids and a variety of diss olved constituents. SCREENING:The first step in purifying surface water is to remove large debris such as stic ks, leaves, trash and other large particles which may interfere with subsequent purification steps. The raw water is passed through screen filter. Screen filter is a type of filter using a rigid or flexible screen to separate sand and other fine particles out of water for. These are generally not recommended for filter ing out organic matter such as algae, since these types of contaminants can be e xtruded into spaghetti-like strings through the filter if enough pressure drops occurs across the filter surface. ALUM AND CHLORINE DOSING:After screening the raw water is dosed with alum and chlorine both in the liquid form and an agitator is provided for stirring, so that proper mixing is there. Alum is the hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate (Potassium alum) with the formu la KAl(SO4)2.12H2O. It is readily soluble in water. When alum is added to water, it reacts with the water and results in positively charged ions. It is added to the water so that the negatively charged light colloidal particles stick togeth er and get heavy (flocculate) when alum makes the colloidal particles neutralize d by making its aluminum ions get loaded with the colloidal parts. When the coll oidal parts get heavy they starts settling down can be easily separated from the tank. Chlorine is a strong oxidant that rapidly kills many harmful micro-organisms. Th e incoming water was chlorinated to minimize the growth of fouling organisms suc h as algae on the pipe-work and tanks. Because chlorine is a toxic gas, there is a danger of a release associated with its use. This problem is avoided by the u se of liquid chlorine. CLARIFLOCCULATOR:In large water treatment plants, the flocculator and the clarifier are combined together to achieve economy in construction. The combined unit of flocculator an d clarifier is known as Clariflocculator. Clariflocculator shall have two concen tric tanks with inner tank serving as flocculation basin and outer tank serving as clarifier. The Clariflocculator in full condition and empty condition as shown below:After alum and chlorine dosing water is fed continuously into Clariflocculator w here water is clarified. Flocculation is a process wherein colloids come out of suspension in the form of floc or flakes by the addition of a clarifying agent or a process of contact and a dhesion whereby the particles of dispersion form larger-size clusters . Clarifying means the removing of any turbidity or Colour so that the water is clear and co lourless. Clarification is done by causing a precipitate to form in the water wh

ich can be removed using simple physical methods. Initially the precipitate form s as very small particles but as the water is gently stirred, these particles st ick together to form bigger particles. Many of the small particles that were ori ginally present in the raw water adsorb onto the surface of these small precipit ate particles and so get incorporated into the larger particles that coagulation produces. In this way the coagulated precipitate takes most of the suspended ma tter out of the water and is then filtered off, by passing the mixture through a gravity sand filter.

RAPID OR GRAVITY SAND FILTER:In this type of filter the water moves vertically through sand which contains a layer of activated carbon or anthracite coal above the sand. The top layer remov es organic compounds, which contribute to taste and odour. The space between san d particles is larger than the smallest suspended particles, so simple filtratio n is not enough. Most particles pass through surface layers but are trapped in p ore spaces or adhere to sand particles. Effective filtration extends into the de pth of the filter. This property of the filter is a key to its operation: if the top layer of sand were to block all the particles, the filter would quickly clo g. To clean the filter, water is passed quickly upward through the filter, opposite the normal direction (called back flushing or backwashing) to remove embedded p articles. Prior to this, compressed air is blown up through the bottom of the fi lter to break up the compacted filter media to aid the backwashing process; this is known as air scouring. This contaminated water is recycled by mixing with th e raw water entering the plant although this is often considered poor practice s ince it re-introduces an elevated concentration of bacteria into the raw water. WATER SOFTENING:In this application, hard water is softened by passing it over an ion exchange r esin. The ion exchange resins are complex sodium salts in the form of beads. Har dness in water is because of the presence of salts of magnesium and calcium. A cation resin in the sodium form is used to remove hard metal ions (Calcium an d Magnesium) from the water along with troublesome traces of iron and manganese, which are also often present. These ions are replaced by an equivalent quantity of sodium, so that the total dissolved solids content of the water remains unch anged as does the pH and anionic content. When the resin is fresh, it contains sodium ions at its active sites. When resin s came in a contact with hard water containing magnesium and calcium ions, the m agnesium and calcium ions preferentially migrate out of solution to the active s ites on the resin, being replaced in solution by sodium ions i.e. the calcium, m agnesium, and other cations precipitate onto the resin surface and sodium goes i nto the water. This process reaches equilibrium with a much lower concentration of magnesium and calcium ions in solution than was started with. At regular time intervals the resin is cleaned. This involves passing influent w ater back up through the resin to remove suspended solids, passing a regenerant solution down through the resin to replace the ions that have bound to the resin and then rinsing again with water to remove the regenerant solution. In water s oftening the regenerant is a strong solution of sodium chloride. The calcium and magnesium ions migrate off the resin, being replaced by sodium ions from the so lution until a new equilibrium is reached. DE-IONIZATION PLANT:Most of the ions have been removed in soft water, but sodium, various anions and chlorine or organic contaminants still remains. Water can be deionized by using a resin that replaces cations with hydrogen and anions with hydroxide. Before d eionization water is passed through activated carbon filter. ACTIVATED CARBON FILTER:In this removal of chlorine and organic contaminants from water takes place. It

is customary to remove chlorine because chlorine damages the resin. Activated carbon filters contains granular activated carbon (GAC). Activated car bon is a form of carbon that has been processed to make it extremely porous and thus to have a very large surface area available for adsorption or chemical reac tions. A slight electro-positive charge is also added to it, making it even more attractive to chemicals and impurities. There are two principal mechanisms by which activated carbon removes contaminant s from water; adsorption, and catalytic reduction, a process involving the attra ction of negatively-charged contaminant ions to the positively-charged activated carbon. Organic compounds are removed by adsorption and residual disinfectants such as chlorine and chloramines are removed by catalytic reduction. CATION EXCHANGER:In this cation exchanger, exchange units have a resin that exchanges H+ ions for Ca, Mg or Na ions as per the following reactions: a) b) c) RH + NaCl 2RH + MgSO4 2RH + Ca(HCO3)2 RNa R2Mg + H2SO4 R2Ca + 2CO2 + 2H2O + HCl

Natural salts are converted to respective mineral acid and alkaline salt split i nto CO2 gas. The outlet will have a low pH. DEGASSER:From the cation units water move to degasser. Here free CO2 content of the water is stripped off with the help of air by passing the water over raching ring pac ked bed. ANION EXCHANGER:Anion exchange units have a resin that exchanges hydroxide ions for the anions t hat they remove. Anion exchange unit removes nitrate, sulfate, and other negativ ely charged atoms. Anions present in the water get removed as per the following reaction: a) b) c) 2ROH + H2SO4 2ROH + HCl 2ROH + H2SO4 R2SO4+ 2H2O RCl + H2O R2SiO3+ 2H2O

MIXED BED ION EXCHANGER:Certain amount of sodium and silica ions get slipped from cation and anion units very large volume of resin is required to check these leakage if tackled indivi dually. Hence, these are removed in mixed bed units. It consists of a bed of mix ed cation and anion resins which act as infinite pairs of cation and anion units . Mixed bed units are renewed with hydrogen ions from an acidic solution for cat ion exchange and with hydroxyl ions from an alkaline solution for anion exchange .