kolkata: The West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited (WBPDCL) achieved the highest ever power generation since its inception at 30,104 million units (PLF 79.56 per cent) in the financial year 2021-22 which is an increase by 26.10 per cent compared to previous year's generation of 23,874 million units.
According to a press statement issued by the department, the WBPDCL comes out to be one of the top performers in the country in capacity utilisation. "Among all power utilities in the country, WBPDCL emerged as topper in installed capacity utilisation. WBPDCL Plant Load Factor is 79.56 per cent, which is higher than all other generating companies in the country (NTPC 70.74 per cent, Central Sector 69.70 per cent, and State Sector 54.51 per cent). Last year our PLF was 57.43 per cent i.e. a jump of 38.5 per cent from previous year," reads the statement.
Three of WBPDCL's plants featured in top 15 positions in all India ranking. Bakreswar thermal power station ranked 3rd position in India on the basis of PLF in FY 2021-22 while Santaldih thermal power station ranked 5th position. Sagardighi Thermal power plant ranked 11th position in the country. Earlier best ranking for WBPDCL was 8th by Bakreswar last year.
It also touched a significant milestone by generating a profit of Rs 503 crore in FY 2021-22. It has become possible through "a series of micro interventions including efficient O&M practices resulting in major improvement in PLF; reduction in tripping, tube leakages thereby increasing the availability and reduction in auxiliary power and specific oil consumption."
Many other issues came as determining factors including the reduction in demurrage through timely unloading of coal at stations; efficient operation of captive coal mines leading to more coal from captive mines resulted in more availability of units ; reduction in outage time over last year is 2.25 per cent .
"We have been able to give a dividend of Rs 75 crore to the state government. Record coal production has been done from captive mines through intensive monitoring and management. We have been able to double our coal production to 11.6 million metric tons this year compared to 6.25 million metric tons in the previous year. With this the proportion of captive coal has increased to 61 per cent compared to 39 per cent from FSA coal during FY 2021-22," mentioned the press statement.