Power Management and Water Conservation

The use, reuse and recycle mantra is now pointing to water conservation and the time ripe for its adoption in the Power Management sector. The enormous amount of water required for steam generation, ash handling, and cooling purpose in a power station enables it as the most essential contender for implementing water conservation strategies in their power plant.

The power managers are increasingly concerned about effective wastewater recycling system in the power plant which handles and recycles the water used for the ash handling system of the thermal power plants. The cooling water unit consumes around 70% of total water consumption in any thermal power plant, followed by ash handling and flue gas desulfurization system. A saving of 17% of water is estimated just by upgrading the cycle of concentration in the circulating cooling water system.

Opportunity areas discovered in the Power Industry

The power plant managers are looking for the possibility of a dry cooling system instead of direct cooling systems in a power plant that is capable of saving millions of cubic of water every year in a coal-fired thermal power plant. This technology has already been adopted and successfully implemented in some of the NTPCs thermal power plants which leads to a huge cut in their daily water consumption.

Changing scenario in the domestic context

The water conservation strategies adopted in any power plant play a key role in the sustainable management of power stations. Upgrading plant managers with innovative technologies and policies in this regard are vital nowadays as Indian power plants are believed to be lagging in terms of technology adoption and are struggling with outdated generating equipment. The initiative of some of the thermal power companies like NTPCs to train their power plant professionals in the explicitly designed power institutions/courses like MBA in Power management are promising and perhaps fortify the efforts of India in enhancing water conservation and greenhouse gas emission control in power plants.