Home | Featured | INDIAN Power Sector at the Crossroadsby Shri D K Jain (Former NTPC Dir Techn.)

INDIAN Power Sector at the Crossroads by Shri D K Jain (Former NTPC Dir Techn.)

The primary and dependable source of energy in the Indian sub-continent is coal. The global concerns of climate change have also forced us to seriously think of ways and means of reducing the carbon footprint of the Indian power sector. There is an urgent need to identify, promote and practice operational strategies that would result in maximization of operational efficiencies in all spheres of the power industry.

EEC which is being structured as a nonprofit member driven organization with initial startup funding from GIZ will go a long way to bring together various experts from the Indian and German power sector on to a common platform for knowledge sharing on best practices and adapting such best practices to the Indian context and subsequently help in deploying these practices and monitoring their progress across the Indian power sector.

CEA and NTPC will be playing a pivotal role in the initial days. As regards the role of NTPC, I envisage that NTPC experts shall be a part of each of the study groups and task groups initiated by EEC and shall actively participate in all projects of the EEC. In order to establish its credibility, EEC will also need active participation from the power generating companies both in the Government as well as private sector, the power distribution and transmission utilities as well as companies in the field of manufacturing of components and sub-systems for the Indian power sector.

I look forward to the creation of task groups to identify areas of improvement in some of the existing power plants and suggest ways and means to achieve the desired performance and efficiency levels at these stations. I am sure that by adapting the best practices wherever possible, improving the operational efficiencies wherever applicable and following the path of renovation and modernization to recover lost capacity or reduced efficiency and wherever possible to further increase the capacity and efficiency by upgradation and uprating of the units, the overall carbon footprint of the Indian power industry can not only be contained but in fact can be reduced.

Further, EEC can also play a very active role in evolving O&M best practices for Indian super critical power plants, with a view to maximizing generation availability and efficiency thereby ensuring reduction GHG emissions. In my opinion the concept of EEC is a timely intervention and very relevant for the Indian power sector. 

I hope and wish that through EEC we shall be able to engage the different constituents of the Indian power sector to draw on the European experiences and best practices and apply them to the Indian context to improve the overall efficiency of the Indian power sector.

I look forward to the day when the Indian power industry will look upon the EEC with the same amount of respect and reverence as the German power industry has for the VGB.

Herein is an opportunity and achallenge that can be addressedby an organization like the VGBin Germany, or the NERC inthe USA or our newly formedExcellence EnhancementCentre for the Indian powersector (EEC). The intentionof establishing EEC is to carryforward this spirit of cooperationby addressing areas specific to thepower industry and resulting in sustainable development ofthe power sector in tune with the needs of the future in termsof better environmental and waste management.



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