The Hindu Business Line : Hydel stations in top gear

The copious rainfall during the last monsoon and the good summer showers this year so far has placed Kerala at a comfortable position as far as power generation is concerned.

With the current water storage available in the reservoirs of the State's hydel projects, a higher number of units could be generated compared to last year, a senior KSEB source told Business Line on Tuesday.

He said that the average daily consumption is 40.27 million units. An all-time record consumption was on March 23. It is observed that from Wednesday to Friday the consumption goes up, he added.

The daily power generation from the hydroelectric plants is 23.58 million units. The rest is met by supply from the Central Generating Stations (CGS). The average daily intake from the CGS is 23.5 million units.

However, in the past few days there has been a shortfall in supply from the CGS due to technical snag at the Thalcher Thermal Power Plant.

To cope with this situation, the diesel generating units of the KSEB were operated to generate four million units daily. Since the supply has been restored partially, the generation from the diesel units has been reduced to one million units during peak hours.

The comfortable position of the State's hydel projects has helped the KSEB to sell 3.6 million units daily to Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh or Chattisgarh through the NTPC's Vidhyut Vyapar Nigam (VVN), the source said.

The units are sold at a pre-fixed price of around Rs 4 each. The supply is made during the day except during the peak hours - 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. - depending upon the availability of the corridor, which is arranged by the VVN, he added.

There have been good summer showers this year. With the inflow this month, 100 million units could be generated. The 10-year pattern of summer rains inflow is enough to generate 58 million units.

There has been an increase of 40 per cent in the 10-year average inflow from June 1 last to March 1 this year, according to the source.

Given the favourable position, the KSEB is expected to continue the sale of power this year.

The annual demand is estimated at 13,900 million units. The State is entitled to draw 7,000 million units from the Central grid.

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