Plants and Power!!

  "With reference to your application we are pleased to offer you vocational training....Please report to the station Manager, Southern Generating Station (on the appointed date)....at 9am to commence your training."
 and that was the appointment letter from CESC Limited.

All right....been bhery bhery busssy with training these last few weeks. Infact training is still on. Am supposed to report at 9am in the morning and stay on till 5pm...and it takes me around two whole hours to reach the Plant and again two whole hours to come back.....phew! But, the hectic schedule is worth it. Training is fun...and of course educative!

OVERVIEW:


CESC Ltd. was earlier known as Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation. (click here for the website) Kilburn & Co. secured the electric lighting license in 1897 and the first power generating station was started in 1899...roughly a decade after electric lighting reached London. The company later changed name to CESC Ltd. and is under the RPG Group.

Electricity is the only form of energy, which is easy to

• produce
• transport
• use
• control

Electricity consumption per capita is the index of the living standard of people of a place or country.

Electricity in bulk quantities is produced in power plants.Thermal Power Plant is one of them, generating more than 80% of the total electricity produced in the world.

The “SOUTHERN GENERATING STATION” is a modern pulverized coal-fired electricity generation unit. It uses the Rankine-based thermodynamic cycle. To increase efficiency, the Rankine Cycle is modified. Here, in this power plant the Regenerative Cycle has been adopted to increase efficiency.

Total capacity is135 MW, with two units each of the capacity of 67.5MW. 

The boiler capacity is 77MW. 

TRAINING:

The best thing about Industrial Training is the fact that you get to see most of the things that you have theoretically studied during your semester. Here you get the opportunity to see their practical applications. For example...God knows why i had a feeling that valves were small and harmless little things. At the Plant i figured out that they were (mostly) huge and made monstrous sounds when operated!! :P

You get to see the Engineers live in action. The sessions with these Engineers and of course the line men can actually teach you more than text books ever can! There are various technical details of the training that can be shared here but that would make the post irritatingly long....so i shall refrain from going into details. I may make another post on the details later.
Lemme summarise things here.
Circuits I studied:
air, coal, water and oil.
I saw:
Boiler, turbine, generator (actuator), valves, microprocessor controlled AVR units...etc etc etc....its a huge list!!
Detailed visits:
DM plant and the effluence treatment plant, boiler and turbine, control units of ESP and the Zero Discharge System and a visit to the top of the Hydro Bin (and that was almost a Fear-Factor stunt type experience!!), Conveyor Belt, Bunkers and crushers, the wagon tippler...are a few. Also detailed study of the transformers.

EXPERIENCE:

I made some great friends. Got accustomed to the work environment in a Plant. Found out how things work in the Core sector. Fell in love with the various Control Units and rediscovered my love for Process Control and DCS.

and its not yet over....shall share more on this later.