AGARTALA, March 19 (TIWN): Gas turbine of Monarchak Plant under Sonamura Sub Division recently faced problem with gas supply from the ONGC. Talking to TIWN, Monarchak Project Head & NEEPCO General Manager S.R. Biswas said that the gas transparency arrangement made by the ONGC for supplying gas to Monarchak, will not meet the requirement of gas turbine system at present. Due to this problem, power generation from the Monarchak gas based thermal power project remains uncertain till a solution is found within next few days.Talking to TIWN, S.R. Biswas said that though the ONGC made necessary arrangement to supply gas to the Monarchak gas based thermal power project for power generation, but the ONGC has not commissioned the control valve on their gas supply. So some of these technical issues are causing the turbine's inability to take load in a proper way, added NEEPCO GM Biswas. “We will bring a fruitful solution to it within a few days next”, said Biswas. He said that the matter will be taken up in a meeting with the ONGC.

Adding to it he said that at present the turbines will not be allowed to take a load of the gas as it may hamper and cause damage to the system. 

It is worthy to mention here that on March 11 the gas turbine of the power plant situated at Monarchak under Sonamura Sub Division synchronized its turbine successfully with the generation of 9 MW of power on its initial stage. The turbine was made run precisely for 25 minutes. Besides, it may be recalled here that the ONGC had already charged gas into the 10 km pipeline from Khedabari - Sonamura GCS, to its Gas Metering Terminal at NEEPCO –Monarchak.

The foundation stone of the Monarchak project had been laid by former power minister of NDA regime (current railways minister) Suresh Prabhu in 2002 with an estimated project cost of Rs 623 crore. NEEPCO Monarchak also houses Northeast India's biggest and the first-of-its-kind 5MW capacity solar power plant in Tripura which has begun commercial production from Monarchak under Sonamura sub division. The solar power plant was set up at a cost of Rs.40 crore. The entire power from the plant is being transmitted to the Tripura power grid now.