NTPC, India’s largest energy conglomerate and its largest coal generator, in March commissioned the country’s first supercritical coal-fired plant equipped with an air-cooled condenser (ACC). The effort responds to concerted efforts by the company and the Indian government—which holds 51.1% of the company—to forge new pathways for coal power that will proactively address water sustainability issues.
The pioneering ACC was installed in Jharkhand state at NTPC’s 2-GW North Kanapura plant, which comprises three supercritical units of 660 MW each (Figure 1). When conceived by the Indian government in 1990 as a pit-head thermal power plant (owing mainly to ample coal availability from the nearby Tandwa block coal fields), the plant’s original design called for a closed-cycle conventional condenser that would have required 55 million cubic meters (MCM) of water annually. Initial plans called for the construction of a 22.5-meter (m)-high dam across the nearby Garhi River, a tributary of the Damodar River, to ensure a permanent source of water to meet the water requirements through the plant’s lifetime.
