ACB India Ltd: Taking Care of Nations Coal Wastage: Producing Power from Washery’s Coal Waste

Coal maybe the largest source for power in India, but there are still some concerns over the use of this non-renewable source of energy for such a huge amount of consumption. The underutilization and wastage of these resources have posed a bigger question to the Indian economy.

The coal in India available today is of lower grade (Grade E or F) with high ash content which is not desirable. It led to the regulation by Government of India that coal with ash content of less than 34% can only be transported over 1000 KMs. Hence, the need for coal washing for the Indian quality coal has become so important.

With a total of 55 coal washeries spread across the country, the present capacity for coal washing in India is approximately 135.08 MTPA. ACB India leads the way in the coal washery business and is also one of the largest players in this industry with 15 washeries spread across India and total capacity of ACB and its associates amounts to around 58.75 MTPA which is approx 50% of India’s total capacity for coal washing. ACB India, with its foresight understood the potential of the coal industry at a time, when the sector was quite aversive to the rest. In its journey of 13-14 years, the company has portrayed to be a pioneer in its field with its vision of what the sector could become eventually in the future.

Today, ACB India doesn’t only have one of the largest coal washeries in the country, but it has also evolved itself as a leader in the field of power generation with reject coal. ACB India, like any other coal washery witnessed the environmental problems of disposing the large quantities of coal rejects, since its very first coal washery in Dipka, which is also the largest in the country. Over the years and with their experience of dealing with coal rejects, the company understood that a general coal beneficiation plant produces around 20% of coal reject having a GCV of 1600-1800 Kcal/kg. . ACB analyzed that if all the coal rejects from the washeries is counted together, there is a tremendous potential for generating power in nearby locations. Hence, ACB India, decided to take this vision of theirs forward and started a pilot 30 MW washeries rejects based power plant at Chakabura, Chattisgarh in 2007. With the success of 30 MW reject based power plant in 2007, ACB is in the process of expanding its reject based power plant capacity to 430 MW, out of which 320 MW would be commissioned in 2011 itself. ACB has demonstrated the unique way of disposing of coal rejects in most environmental friendly manner.

ACB India Limited is further expanding in a big way, to build thermal power plants based on linkage aggregating to 3300 MW in the state of Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh.