A G Vinchurkar , R R Lakhe , R L Shrivastava

Abstract

The Indian economy has experienced unprecedented economic growth over the last decade. Today, India is the ninth largest economy in the world, driven by a real GDP growth of 8.7% in the last 5 years (7.5% over the last 10 years). The growth rate of GDP of India is the 5th highest in the world. This high order of sustained economic growth is placing enormous demand on its energy resources. If the GDP growth rate is 7.5% the power should grow 9.5% annually. The demand and supply imbalance in energy is pervasive across all sources requiring serious efforts by Government of India to augment energy supplies as India faces possible severe energy supply constraints. India's energy basket has a mix of all the resources available including renewable. The dominance of coal in the energy mix is likely to continue in foreseeable future. At present India's coal dependence is borne out from the fact that 69% of the total installed electricity generation capacity is coal based and it is expected that 118537 MW would be added in 12th five year plan. Out of the capacity planned to be added during the 12th five year Plan period (2012-17), 72340 MW is coal based. As on 31.08.2014 176119 MW electricity generated is from coal based power plants which almost 70% of the total installed capacity. Other renewable such as wind, geothermal, solar, and hydroelectricity represent a 12.5 percent share of the Indian fuel mix. Nuclear holds a two percent share. As on December 2014 the installed capacity of power generation in India is 254000 MW. As per the Electric Power Survey of India it is envisaged that over 120000 MW would be added in the existing installed capacity of power generation. In future high capacity power plants of 660 and 800 MW size would be installed to meet the demand of power in the country. The power scenario clearly depicts that the extensive use of coal, oil and gas would be made to produce power to meet the demand as compared to other sources of power generation viz hydro, nuclear and renewable. In order to conserve the energy for energy security it is essential to follow the energy management practices in thermal power plants as in case of other industries to improve the performance of the plant. The purpose of this research paper is make the exhaustive and systematic search of literature related to energy management in thermal power plant to identify the critical success factors of energy management which is having strong influence on the performance of the plant. The present study focuses on empirical literature on energy management approaches in thermal plants as a guide for further research in this area.

Keywords- Critical success factors of Energy management for thermal power plant