The Hindu Business Line : Rains push up water level in Kerala reservoirs

Kochi, July 18 The water level in the reservoirs of the hydroelectric projects in Kerala has increased by 34 per cent in less than a fortnight following heavy rains in the catchment areas in recent days.

The storage levels in all the projects has gone up to 59 per cent of the total capacity enough to generate 2,409 million units as on July 18 as against 1,769 million units on the same day last year.

The major hydroelectric projects, Idukki and Sabarigiri have 54 per cent of their capacity while all the small projects such as Kuttiyadi, Panniar, Neriamangalam, Peringal Koothu and Lower Periyar are full and spilling over, KSEB senior sources told Business Line.

He said to fully utilise the spilling water, power generation at all these small projects is at the maximum. Generation from the two major projects has been restricted to 3.4 million units daily.

About 65 per cent of the water storage is built up during the south-west monsoon and this year so far 45 per cent has been received.

Ever since the onset of the monsoon the water storage has reached such a level with which 3,000 million units can be generated.

There would be an inflow of 10-15 per cent in the coming days even if the rains stop now, they said. With the total inflow in July so far, 1,987 million units could be generated, they said.

The balance 35 per cent of the capacity is filled during the north east monsoon. Normally, it doesn’t fail. However, in 2002-03 “we had good southwest monsoon but the northeast totally failed. Such a situation is unusual and don’t expect to happen”, they said.

Demand & supply

The daily demand at present is 38 million units. To meet this, 17.63 million units are generated from the hydel projects while 19.5 million units are drawn from the central pool. Depending on the peak hour demand from 6.30 pm to 9 pm KSEB’s diesel power generating units are operated, they said.

New connections this year is to push up the demand by 8 per cent from that of last year, they said.

Peak hour demand during the summer evenings would go up to 2,950 MW and this might require thermal support.

The total demand this year is estimated at 15,500 million units. If normal rains received the hydroelectric projects could generate 6,500 million units while the central share would come to 7,500 million units.

But the full central share is often not available. The state’s share is 1,180 MW. As against this entitlement what is offered now is 1,046 MW and even that is not fully available.

Last year 990-1,000 MW could be drawn. Now it is 900 MW and as a result the state could draw only 22 million units daily.

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