Mysuru: Below par teaching standards and teaching aids is an issue to be addressed in engineering colleges across the state. The quality of teaching faculty is of paramount importance for any institution to excel in the field of education, said Kumar Naik, Managing Director, KPCL, Bengaluru.
Delivering the inaugural address during the week long faculty development program on ‘Sustenance of Energy and Environment-Challenges and Research Dimension’ organized by SJCE at its premise here on Monday he said, “ It is imminent for the faculty to keep abreast of evolving technologies to remain relevant in the field of teaching. In this context, conducting seminars, workshops and lectures will help in a big way in keeping the teaching staff in tune with times”.
He also briefed about the functions of KPTCL and KPCL which described the power scenario of the country. “We have installed capacity of 3,03,118MW at national level. Out of this, 2,11,640MW is in thermal sector. The coal fired capacity is 1,86,212MW. We can see 61 per cent of the energy needs are provided by coal based stations which is a clear indicator of our heavy dependence on coal. Karnataka is a state which does not have coal reserves. We are dependent on the coal allocations made by the government of India for running our thermal stations. We get coal to our stations from Singareni Collieries in Telangana, Western Coal fields in Maharashtra and Mahanadi coal fields in Orissa. Because of huge distances involved in transportation via rail, we end up paying freight charges which are 50 percent of the basic cost of coal. The coal we receive contains an average of 35 per cent ash. We consume 53,000 tons of coal on a daily basis in our thermal plants, from which we roughly generate 19000 tons of fly ash. The usefulness of fly ash was not well established until the year 2000. We had to dispose this whole ash in the slurry to ash bunds. We have already exhausted an ash bund of 500 acres,” added Naik.
Challenges in disposing off the fly ash has to be addressed
“In Raichur alone we generate 30 million tons of fly ash every year. The mandate is to utilise 100 per cent fly ash in dry from without letting it into ash bunds. Major quantities of fly ash produced is utilised by the cement industries. We are planning to popularize the use of fly ash among entrepreneurs in and around the power plant to set up small scale industries to manufacture fly ash products like bricks used in road laying,” pointed Naik.
“Our present per capita electricity consumption is 1010 kwh, while for USA is 15300 kwh. Per capita energy consumption is an indicator of all round development of a country. In the modern world to meet the demand for power supply, scientists and researchers will show us a way forward for large scale storage of electrical energy and releasing the same in a regulated manner whenever required. To encourage participation in power generation, the government of India is supporting in the form of a subsidy ‘Viability Gap Funding’ to the tune of Rs 1.3 crore/MW which has made is viable,” said Naik.
