Hyderabad: Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) successfully synchronised 15 MW of solar power from its Ramagundam area-3 unit, which has an installed capacity of 50 MW, on Friday.
SCCL Director (Electrical and Mechanical) D Satyanarayana Rao formally synchronised the unit with the 132 KV sub-station marking the achievement of producing a total of 55 MW of solar power from the Ramagundam solar power plant.
The government-owned coal major is mulling production of 130 MW of solar power by the end of the year under phase-1 of its plans to construct 300 MW solar power generating plants in the State.
According to Chairman and Managing Director of SCCL N Sridhar, construction of 129 MW solar generating units had been taken up at Manuguru, Yellendu, Ramagundam-3 and Singareni. Of these, 10 MW Singareni plant, 30 MW Manuguru plant and 15 MW of the 50 MW Ramagundam-3 have begun producing power and all of them were synchronised with the grid successfully.
The CMD, congratulating the engineers for their achievement, said the remaining 35 MW of Ramagundam-3 and the remaining 39 MW power generation from Manuguru would be completed by the end of December. He also said that work on the second phase that includes 90 MW production and 3rd phase that includes 81 MW of power generation must be completed by December 2021.
Satyanarayana Rao said that works were going on at breakneck speed to achieve 300 MW of solar power production as envisaged by the government.
Ramagundam-3 to save Rs 17 cr
The SCCL will be saving Rs 17 crore every year by utilising the solar power produced in power plants for its internal use. The Singareni collieries spend 220 million units of power from the Transco to supply power to mines and employees’ colonies of the Ramagundam area.
Once the 50 MW capacity power generation plant is completed it will be able to save huge amounts on power bills. While Singareni pays Rs 5.65 to Transco for every single unit it purchases, production of solar power costs only Rs 3.54 per unit to SCCL. The company has so far saved Rs 297 lakh by consuming solar power generated by its own units.
SCCL solar power projects have produced 8.24 million units of solar power from the month of February this year from Singareni, 6.02 million units from Manuguru. The SCCL which utilizes over 700 million units of power for its entire operations will be able to produce 500 million units of solar power and it will have to purchase only 200 MW from Transco. The engineers estimated that the saving will be to the tune of Rs 120 crore.
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