Odisha state tells power plants to bear cost of fly ash transportation

• 8 years ago (2015-09-28)
• David Flin

North America 1004

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The State government of Odisha in India, has, because of the large volume of fly ash generated by coal-fired power plants that is being unutilised, instructed all power plants with generation capacity greater than 100 MW to bear the cost of transporting fly ash to destinations up to 100 km away.

The Odisha State Pollution Control Board has said: “All power plants have been instructed to supply fly ash free of cost to brick manufacturing units. All coal-fired power plants with a capacity more than 100 MW have been instructed to subsidise transport costs at the rate of Rs0.150 ($0.00227) per tonne or provide free transport up to 100 km.”

Many power plants have been reluctant to transport fly ash because of the high cost of its transportation. Initially, to increase utilisation of fly ash, the Works Department had already made it mandatory to use fly ash bricks to construct government buildings situated within 100 km of a coal-fired power plant.

In 2014-15, 36 power plants with a combined capacity of 14,244 MW generated 24.7 million metric tonnes (MMT) of fly ash, of which only 12.94 MMT (52.4 per cent) was used.