CESC to close Cossipore power plant
22 Nov 2014
The Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) is closing down the New Cossipore power generating station later this month, drawing curtains on the 64-year-old unit on the eastern bank of Hooghly in a busy north Calcutta locality.
CESC is the flagship company of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group
Built in 1949, the plant occasionally generates electricity, especially when demand touches a peak, to mitigate chances of a power cut in Calcutta, parts of Howrah and Hooghly, the licence areas of CESC.
The decision comes at a time when CESC is gearing up to start production at Haldia, the latest unit of CESC.
CESC chairman Sanjiv Goenka said the 600MW Haldia unit would be fully operational by February. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate the plant built at a cost of Rs 4,600 crore.
''Old units should be phased out. I am in favour of that. But it has to be a consultative process after talking to all the stakeholders, including the regulator, the government and the employees,'' Goenka said.
CESC has four operating units in Bengal with a combined capacity of 1,225MW. The maximum demand met in the CESC area is 2,042MW.
The installed capacity of the Cossipore plant located on the 30-acre plot was 100MW.
The cost of producing electricity was higher in this old plant as it used top-grade coal. The employees have been told about the decision to shut down the plant.
Cossipore also has a distribution station that has recently been beefed up.
CESC also last year built transmission towers across the Hooghly, connecting the Belur substation at Howrah to Cossipore in Calcutta by a trans-river cable system. Apart from supplying power from Calcutta to Howrah, the system is geared to receive electricity from outside the state.
Goenka said the Haldia capacity would bring reliability in power supply in the licence area. ''I want to ensure that loadshedding is a thing of the past for this and the future generation.''
The closure of the Cossipore plant will not impact generation since the company would be nearly self-sufficient in meeting internal demand, except occasionally in summer.
In 2004, CESC had closed down the Mulajore plant.
The Titagarh and Southern units, however, will continue to produce despite being quite old. Rules state that a power plant either needs to be closed down or refurbished with new boilers and turbines after 25 years.