Green stakes: NTPC, Bhel seek larger chunk of carbon credit pie

The world can breathe easy. India’s state-owned power industry — often clubbed with the big contributors of greenhouse gas emissions — is betting big on green stakes to clean up the air and grab a larger pie of the carbon credit market.

Pointers to a concerted move in this direction come from generation utility NTPC, which accounts for half of the electricity produced, and the country’s biggest power equipment manufacturer Bhel.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, penned by India's 'green guru' R K Pachauri and pushed by junior power minister Jairam Ramesh, NTPC will commit 0.5% of its annual net profit, or roughly Rs 30 crore, to fund research in climate change. This will cover issues ranging from developing clean coal technology with a view to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired plants and consumption of water.

Western environmentalists have identified old plants of generation utilities burning coal in surging economies such as India and China as major contributors of greenhouse gas emissions and blamed them for rapid deterioration in air quality. Coal-fired units account for nearly 65% of India’s generation capacity, forcing utilities struggling to keep pollution under check from domestic coal with 35-40% ash content. The initiative will help develop cheap technology.

In the second instance, Bhel has signed a Rs 950 crore agreement with APGENCO, India’s third biggest thermal power producer, to set up a 125 mw power plant at Vijaywada using IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle) technology that Bhel has been working on for two decades. The power equipment maker has been running a 6 mw pilot plant on this technology at Trichy since 1983 and is now being raised to commercial size.

The technolgy cuts greenhouse gases, reduces water consumption by 40%, produces lower solid waste production and has operating efficiency of around 40%. It also offers a technical pathway for cost-effective separation of carbon dioxide and co-production of hydrogen.

Bhel’s technology is unique as it extracts these figures from Indian coal as against low-ash coal burnt by plants using this technology in US and Spain.

"This project has major implications for India’s energy strategy that has to reckon seriously with international concerns on global warming arising out of expanding coal use. There are seven or eight IGCC plants in the 250-300 mw range in other countries like the US but they all use low-ash coal," Ramesh told TOI after signing the agreement in Visakhapatnam. The deal was signed in the presence of finance minister P Chidambaram and minister for heavy industry Santosh Mohan Dev.

Bhel will contribute roughly Rs 420 crore and the balance Rs 530 crore will come from APGENCO. The project is scheduled for commissioning in mid-2011. APGENCO is putting up the country’s first twin supercritical 800 mw units at Krishnapattnam in Nellore district. Bids are being finalised. It was at Vijaywada thermal power plant complex that Bhel’s 210 mw units were first proven a technological success over a quarter of a century ago.


source:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India_Business/Green_stakes_NTPC_Bhel_seek_larger_chunk_of_carbon_credit_pie/articleshow/3030958.cms