Cement Energy and Environment

Impact NEW WATER NORMS NOTIFIED ON 07.12.2015 Estimates are that the TPPs burning coal account for about 50-60 per cent of PM and 30-40 per cent of SOx and 40-50 per cent of NOx produced by the industrial sector. You get pollution from cars/autos and from other sources as well. 'Of the total industrial sector, power sector is a huge contributor to the pollution. If you clean this sector, it will have an 1. All plants with Once Through Cooling (OTC) shall install Cooling Tower (CD and achieve specnic water consumption of 3.5 m3/MWh within 2years of notification. 2"1Ail existing CT ba-se-dp-la-nts-s-ha-11 reduce spec~ic water consumption up-to maximum of 3.5m3/MWh within aperiod of 2years of notification. 3. New plants to be installed after 1stJanuary 2017 shall have to meet specific water consumption of 2.5 m3/MWh and achieve zero water discharge. Source: CEA overall impact,· said Priyavrat Bhati, Programme Director - Green Rating Project, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Basically, the previous particulate matter (PM) emission standards were between 150-350 milligram (mg) per Nm3. The newer plants are to meet the standard of 50 mg/Nm3. For SOx and NOx there were no standards. At present, the SOx and NOx are estimated on 700-800 mg/Nm3. Lot of plants do not collect data, they go by just the rule of thumb. For the new plants, these standards will result in SOx being cut to 100 mg/Nm3, that is over 80 per cent cut. The same is the case with NOx. Based on age, different plants have different levels. Essentially, going forward , for the new age plants, the cuts could be between 80-90 per cent for main pollutants like S02 and NOx. For those emitting around 350-400 mg/Nm3 a cut to 100 mg/Nm3 means a 75 per cent reduction. The other way to look at it is the total pollution load, which for NOx is 5.5-6 million tonnes, and going forward , based on the generation etc., even estimating 600 billion units of production from the coal-based power sector, it could be around 35 per cent basically. 'As per some reports though , it is estimated that new plants which comply with the new norms will have 25 per cent lower PM emissions, 50 per cent lower Sox and 67 per cent lower NOx emissions as compared to current plants which have been commissioned recently,· Ashok Khurana, Director General, Association of Power Producers (APP). Cost The new norms are considerably more stringent than the existing norms and have also been applied on a retrospective basis, which means that many of the existing TPPs are facing a huge capital expenditure and do design re– engineering for compliance. The total cost of the upgrade of extant capacities is estimated at Rs.2.4 lakh crore, Gaurav Sharma, Senior Analyst, Independent Power Producers Association of India (IPPAI) citing industry estimates. 'Preliminary estimates indicate capital expenditure requirement in the range of Rs.1.25 Cr/MW to Rs.1.5 Cr/MW, i.e about 20-25% of the capital cost of a coal-based TPP. Considering the above estimates, the total outlay involved could be about Rs.2.5 lakh crore,· said Khurana. 'It will also lead to additional operating costs of about Rs.3.5 lakhs/ MW/ year. Further, operating parameters like auxiliary consumption will increase by about 1 to 1.5 % and there will be increased water consumption and degraded Station Heat Rate (SHR). All put together, it will lead to an increase in the cost of power ranging from about Rs.0.50 to Rs.1 .25 per unit depending upon the plant specific requirement,6 Khurana added. However, CSE has put the rough cost of brazing up the existing plants of 186-GW capacity to the new norms in the range of Rs.80,000 crore- 1.1 lakh crore, including partial addition or full adoption of new technologies to meet the norms. Bhati said, ' Now, in terms of economic (or capital) cost, for the oldest plants it could be put at Rs .0.4- 0.5 crore per MW, for the newest plants it could be Rs.0.7-0.9 crore per MW.' For old plants it is lower, because they do not have to cut their emission so sharply. Technical limitations There are many technical and operational issues involved in adhering to the new norms. 43