State-run power generation company NTPC on Sunday said it has developed the required infrastructure for transporting fly ash in bulk to cement plants at a cheaper cost at its Rihand project in Uttar Pradesh.
Lucknow, August 18: Balaji Iyengar, Executive Director, Rihand, flagged off from NTPC’s Rihand Super Thermal Power station, the first rake of 59 ‘BOXN’ type railway wagons carrying 3,450 metric tonnes fly ash for the ACC Cement manufacturing plant at Tikaria located at a distance of 458 km, NTPC said in a statement, being optimistic in the innovation paving way for efficient and safer transportation of fly ash in large quantities from the power plants to cement production units located at a distance.
“The effort marks the beginning of a new era for the transportation of fly ash from a remote location to a consumption centre, enabling power plants for upgrading utilisation of fly ash with the availability of additional material loading avenues for Indian Railways and accessibility of fly ash to the cement plants in an environment-friendly manner at a competitive price”, the statement said. Almost 44.33 million tonnes of fly ash was utilised for various productive purposes, with 73.31% of the ash generated, during the financial year 2019-20
The statement added that the company is also looking at new avenues of fly ash management like fly ash-based geo-polymer roads, and use of bottom ash as replacement of fine aggregate sand in cement concrete, along with plans to set up a fly ash classifier unit for export purposes.
NTPC Group has 70 power stations with total installed capacity of 62.9 GW, which comprises 24 coal, 7 combined cycle gas/liquid fuel, 1 hydro, 13 renewables along with 25 subsidiary and JV power stations, while the group has another more than 20 GW of capacity under construction, including 5 GW of renewable energy projects.
The development is in line with NTPC’s commitment to 100 percent utilisation of fly ash from power plants has led to this development.
