Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) has been declared the successful bidder for a Rs 19,422-crore turnkey contract to set up a thermal power plant for NLC India at Talabira, Odisha. The financial bids were opened on 29 December, 2023.

Under this contract, the company will be responsible for building three ultra-supercritical units of 800 MW each for NLC.  The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) tender was for the first three projects. Recently, NLC has added a fourth unit of 800 MW to the project. The power plant will be fed with coal from NLC’s Talabira mines. NLC expects to produce 14.5 MT of coal from Talabira this year and has plans to expand production to 20 MT in a few years.

This order will load BHEL’s plants at Tiruchi (boilers), Haridwar (turbine-generator) and Hyderabad (various other components such as pulveriser mills). A project of this size usually takes about five years to complete.

An ultra-supercritical thermal plant operates at temperature and the pressure of the steam generated is very high, approx. 600 degrees C and 240 bar. Such plants are more efficient as they produce more power per unit of fuel.