Modelling Of Air Pollution From A Thermal Power Plant In Andhra Pradesh – A Case Study

Abstract

The ash and sulphur contents of the solid fuels lead to increased air pollution levels in the surroundings due to their burning. While unorganized burning such as municipal solid waste burning for reduction in volume leads to area emissions, the organized burning of coal in all the industries for their operational purposes leads to area and point source emissions. The point source emissions from an industry are let out into atmosphere through a high stack installed for this purpose to disperse and dilute air pollutants into atmosphere. The thermal power plants (TPP) require huge coal for operational purposes and hence pose a high potential threat in terms of air pollutant release. The release of SO2 and particulate matter from a TPP near Vijayawada is considered. Based on the secondary data, the dispersion of these pollutants is analyzed using Gaussian dispersion model. The dispersion patterns of the pollutants up to 40km in longitudinal direction and 2km in lateral direction are considered under the influence of all the six (A-F) atmospheric stability categories. The impact of these pollutants on nearby habitable places such as Vijayawada (20km away), Mylavaram (25km away) and Amaravati, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh (15km aerial distance) are analyzed.   

It is observed that (i) during day time and high temperatures, pollutants are not travelling long distances but during evening they are travelling long distances with considerable concentration up to 28-30 km (ii) the impact of these low concentrations over long distances needs to be ascertained (iii) The air quality index in Vijayawada and Mylavaram are under Satisfactory category while Amaravati city can be prone to air pollution problems from the TPP based on the present study (iv) the influence of change in landuse in terms pollution levels for Amaravati, which was earlier agricultural land needs ascertainment.