NLC India produces 1mt of coal in 1st year of operation

Coal Insights Bureau

In its first year of coal mining from its Talabira mines in Odisha, NLC India has been able to cross the target set for the maiden year at 0.937 million tons by actually excavating 1.013 million tons in FY21.

The Navratna public enterprise under the Ministry of Coal, for the first time, commenced production of coal on April 20, 2020 from Talabira II and III mines.

The mines, with a capacity of 20 million tons per annum, were allotted to NLC in 2016 to meet requirement of its existing and future coal fired power plants.

Coal production at full mining capacity is expected to reach in FY28.

With the addition of the coal mines, NLC’s total mining capacity has touched 50.60 mtpa.

NLC has added 500 MW of lignitebased thermal power capacity and 17.5 MW of solar with battery energy storage, taking its total installed power generating capacity and its subsidiaries to 6,061.06 MW, according to a released issued by the company.

In September 2020, with the commissioning of the company’s 709 MW solar project in Tamil Nadu, NLC became the first central public service enterprise to have installed solar project capacity of more than 1 GW.

NLCIL and its subsidiaries generated 24,613 million units (MU) of power in FY21. The renewable power generation was up by 39 per cent to 2,057 MU in FY21 from 1,481 MU in the previous year.

The company also entered power trading in a big way.

Round-the-clock trading of surrendered power of NLC’s thermal power stations through Real Time Market (RTM) commenced on June 1, 2020 and since then it has traded 868.78 MU, earning a gross revenue of `216 crore.

NLCIL and its subsidiaries realisation of power dues from discoms crossed `11,300 crore in FY21.

NLC India is operating three open cast lignite mines at Neyveli in Tamil Nadu and one opencast lignite Mine at Barsingsar in Rajasthan having aggregate capacity of 30.60 mtpa.

Pachwara South coal block

Subsidiary NUPPL has been allotted Pachwara South coal block in Jharkhand having capacity of 9 mtpa (normative) or 11 mtpa (peak) at an estimated cost of Rs 1,795 crore.

MIPL GCL Infra Contract Pvt Ltd has been appointed as the Mine Developer Operator (MDO). Geological report and mine plan have been submitted and civil survey and site survey have been completed.

NLC-Coal India JV to invest in 3,000 MW solar power

NLC India Ltd and Coal India Ltd have plans to get into 3,000 MW of solar power generation.

The JV, Coal Lignite Urja Vikash Private Ltd. will be bidding for about 3,000 MW of solar power projects that will be tendered. The investment outlay would be about Rs 12,500 crore.

Coal Lignite Urja is a 50:50 joint venture company.

NLC India in July 2020, entered an agreement with Coal India to form a joint venture to develop solar and thermal power assets of 5,000 MW on pan-India basis.

Apart from solar power projects, Coal Lignite Urja will also get into thermal power generation.