Chennai: After the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the controversial Vallur Thermal Power Plant Monday dismissing the Madras High Court’s interim order, power generation restarted at the three units of the plant today. With this, many parts of Chennai which were on the verge of losing power, restored back to normalcy.
Vallur plant was shut last Thursday as Madras High Court, in an interim order, ordered closure of the plant for dumping soil mixed with fly ash in the Ennore Creek nearby.
Fly ash is a residual material after burning coal and is a known contaminant of groundwater tables. Following the order, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Tamilnadu Energy Company Ltd, a joint venture of NTPC and Tamilnadu Electricity Board (TNEB), shut three units, each with a capacity of 500 MW. Tamilnadu was getting 1,000 MW power from the units, while 500MW was being supplied to Kerala and Puducherry.
With the power demand peaking to 14,500 MW despite cool weather in Tamilnadu, the shut down turned out to be a challenge for the government.
Hearing a special leave petition filed by NTPC Tamilnadu Energy Company Ltd Monday, the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul stayed the operation of the Madras High Court’s interim order.
Following the order, the operations in the three units of the plant got restarted in the wee hours of today. The thermal power plant at Vallur began operations in 2012. It was recently in the news when the inventory of coal for power generation touched an all-time low of zero in November 2018.
With one reactor of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant shut down, it is expected that there will be a crunch in Tamilnadu’s power supply unless TANGEDCO takes proactive measures to ensure sufficient electricity in the State.