The Union Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy has informed that power plants including thermal and hydro carry out annual maintenance and periodic maintenance of various plant items/machinery to prevent breakdown, loss of generation and loss of efficiency etc. As per Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) General Review 2022, the efficiency of coal and lignite-based plants increased from 34.68% in 2014-15 to 35.88% in 2021-22.
With regards to Renovation & Modernisation (R&M) and Life Extension (LE), CEA has prepared a report after studying various aspects of R&M and LE of coal based thermal power plants in August, 2023 and the same has been circulated by Ministry of Power (MoP) to all power utilities wherein CEA had identified 148 thermal units with a total capacity of ~38150 MW as potential candidates for R&M/LE works. The phasing plan for implementation for R&M/LE at 148 units was also prepared in consultation with central, state and private power utilities.
