The Chhindwara Pench thermal power plant is a 1,320MW coal-fired power station proposed to be built in the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, India.
Pench Thermal Energy (formerly Adani Pench Power), a subsidiary of Adani Power, will be the owner and operator of the two-unit supercritical coal-fired facility. The total investment on the project is estimated to be £770m ($960m).
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The project received environmental clearance (EC) from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, in October 2012. The validity of the EC was until 2019.
Pench Thermal Energy, however, requested to extend the validity by three more years in August 2019.
The construction of the power plant is expected to be started after reaching the financial closure and securing a power purchase agreement (PPA) by 2022, with commissioning expected by 2026.
Location and site details
The Chhindwara Pench coal-fired power plant is proposed to be developed on a 300ha-site in Chausara village, in the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, India. Land possession, as well as the construction of the boundary wall along with the site office, has been completed.
The project site is located near the Pench Tiger Reserve or the Pench National Park, in the Satpura mountain range, approximately 150km away from Nagpur and approximately 30km from Chhindwara.
Chhindwara Pench power plant make-up
The Chhindwara Pench thermal power plant will be equipped with two supercritical coal-fired units of 660MW capacity each and a 275m-tall twin flue stack made of reinforced concrete (RC).
The power station will be fitted with flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) units and high-efficiency electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) to control emissions.
The other facilities at the plant site will include a coal stockyard with a water sprinkling facility, a crusher house equipped with a dust extraction system, as well as an ash disposal area for both fly and bottom ash.
The plant site will also feature water treatment, storage and rainwater harvesting facilities, and approximately 68 solar lights along the approach road to the plant.
Fuel supply
The Chhindwara Pench thermal power plant is estimated to require approximately 5.27 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of coal.
The coal for the power plant is initially planned to be imported from Indonesia and South Africa, while indigenous coal is planned to be procured from the nearby mines and transferred to the site using railway wagons subsequently.
The plant will also use up to 15,610kl of light diesel oil (LDO) as the secondary fuel.
Water supply
The 1.3GW coal-fired power plant is estimated to require 33.29 million cubic metres (mcm) of water annually which will be sourced through pipelines from the Pench Diversion Dam on the Pench River located approximately 8km away from the project site.
The project site is proposed to have a water reservoir capable of storing the amount of water required for 15 days of the plant’s operation.
Power evacuation
The electricity generated by the Chhindwara Pench thermal power plant is proposed to be evacuated by the Madhya Pradesh Transmission Company (MPTCL) system or the Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) through 400kV or 765kV transmission lines.
Contractors involved
GIS Enabled Environment & Neo-graphic Centre (GreenC), an environmental consulting company based in India, was engaged to carry out the environmental impact assessment (EIA) study for the Chhindwara Pench thermal power project.
