Optimum installed capacity of Coal Based Powei Plants cogitating Environment and Economic Aspects

Towards its commitment to climate change Government of India (GOI), being a part of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) has taken up an ambitious program of renewable energy sources to increase its capacity to 40% by the year 2030 without considering its implications on the overall power system. The installed capacity for base load intends to serve primarily the demand based on the minimum load requirements. This paper focuses mainly on computing the optimum installed capacity of thermal/coal based power plants considering the average hourly demand over the months of the year. To compute the optimum installed capacity of thermal/coal base power plants, based on the past trends three cases have been considered - lowest out of minimum of average hourly demand, lowest out of average of the average hourly demand and highest out of minimum of average hourly demand. The proposed methodology has been implemented on the average demand chart of state of Maharashtra, India for the year 2018. This mitigates the environmental impact to a reasonable extent and simultaneously makes these plants operate at their optimal levels with increased plant load factor and reduced energy losses thus reducing the overall cost of generation.