NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 93 of 150

Correct — A, Nagpur. Koradi Thermal Power Station stands at Koradi on the northern side of Nagpur in Maharashtra and is run by the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company, Mahagenco. It is a coal-fired station spread over about three and a third square kilometres, with a nameplate capacity given as 2,490 megawatts and roughly 2,190 megawatts operating, including three units of 660 megawatts added in its fourth stage. Its siting follows the standard logic for a coal station — it sits close to the Wardha and Kamptee coalfields of eastern Vidarbha, so the fuel travels a short distance to the plant rather than the electricity travelling a long distance to the consumer. Nagpur district also carries the Khaperkheda station on the same coal base.

• (b)Raipur — Raipur is the capital of Chhattisgarh, a major coal and power State in its own right, with large stations at Korba and elsewhere. Koradi is not among them; the similarity of the two names is what the option trades on.
• (c)Mumbai — Mumbai is a consumption centre rather than a coal-station site. Its power comes largely from the Tata and Adani systems, including the Trombay station and hydro plants in the Western Ghats, and there is no coalfield anywhere near it.
• (d)Secunderabad — Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad in Telangana, is not the location of Koradi. Telangana's large thermal capacity is at places such as Ramagundam, close to the Singareni coalfield, on the same coalfield logic that puts Koradi near Nagpur.

A coal-fired thermal power station is sited by weighing three needs — a supply of coal, a large and steady supply of water for the boilers and the cooling system, and a transmission and transport network to move fuel in and power out. Because coal is bulky and loses value in transport while electricity moves comparatively easily, stations tend to cluster at or near the coalfield. Vidarbha, in eastern Maharashtra, is the State's coal region, which is why so much of Maharashtra's generation sits there rather than near Mumbai.

When a station's name is unfamiliar, place it by the geography of the fuel rather than by memory. Among the four options only Nagpur lies in a coalfield belt with a large State generating company, and the other three are either distant capitals or coastal consumption centres. Anchoring stations to their coalfields is the durable version of this learning — Korba to the Korba field, Ramagundam to Singareni, Talcher to the Talcher field, Singrauli to the Singrauli field, Koradi and Khaperkheda to the Vidarbha coal.

• Koradi Thermal Power Station is at Koradi, just north of Nagpur, Maharashtra.
• It is operated by the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company, known as Mahagenco.
• Its nameplate capacity is given as 2,490 megawatts, including three units of 660 megawatts from its fourth stage.
• Nagpur district also has the Khaperkheda thermal power station, on the same eastern Vidarbha coal base.
• Thermal power is the largest industrial consumer of fresh water in India, because of the demands of boiler feed and cooling.

• Confusing Koradi with Korba, which is in Chhattisgarh, or letting Raipur's sound pull you to Chhattisgarh.
• Assuming a large station must be near a large city; coal stations follow the coal.
• Forgetting that Maharashtra's coal and much of its generation lie in Vidarbha, far from Mumbai.

NDA asks plant-to-place and mineral-to-State questions in almost every paper, often as a match-the-list item.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Koradi Thermal Power Station is operated by

  • (a)NTPC Limited
  • (b)Mahagenco
  • (c)Damodar Valley Corporation
  • (d)NHPC Limited

  Answer(b) Mahagenco — the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following is the most important single factor in siting a coal-based thermal power station?

  • (a)Nearness to an international airport
  • (b)Nearness to the coalfield and to a water source
  • (c)Nearness to a forest
  • (d)Nearness to an international border

  Answer(b) Nearness to the coalfield and to a water source — coal is bulky to move and the station needs large volumes of water.