The Hindu Business Line : Wind power producers sore over TNEB action

The Board’s action is preventing the wind farms from supplying power to the State grid at a time when the grid is sorely in need of every unit of power.

R. Yegya Narayanan

Coimbatore, Sept. 25 At a time when Tamil Nadu is reeling under severe power cuts, the wind power producers in Coimbatore district are dismayed over the action of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) in cutting off power supply to the feeders linked to the wind farms in an isolated pocket in the district so as to enforce the power cut on the industries that are served by the same feeders.

The TNEB’s action is preventing the wind farms from supplying power to the state grid at a time when the grid is sorely in need of every unit of power, they contend.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr K. Kasthurirangaiyan, Vice-Chairman, Indian Wind Power Association (IWPA), said Coimbatore district has an installed capacity of around 1,380 MW of wind power. The Plant Load Factor (PLF) of the wind power generating units is around 22-25 per cent and the actual generation could be around 500 MW based on the PLF.

He said the TNEB has imposed a 5-hour power cut on consumers drawing power from the state grid in Coimbatore district. This cut was also imposed on feeders to which were linked with some of the wind power generating units in Udamalpet, Poolavadi and nearby areas. TNEB’s action was ostensibly to enforce the power cut on industries that may be connected to the same feeders as the wind power units and the board may be technically right. But this has robbed the grid of getting precious power from the wind farms since they could not evacuate the power when the power cut to the feeders connected to the wind farms was in force.

All are equal

TNEB’s decision was based on the premise that all consumers should be treated equal. Any power supply from the windmills to the grid during the duration of power cut would benefit industrial units that might be linked to the same feeder providing them an advantage over other units that might have power supply cut off at that time.

Mr Kasthurirangaiyan argued that the wind farms had bailed out the TNEB from acute power shortage for more than six months now and the argument of the TNEB that it wanted to treat all consumers equal might be technically correct but it denied the grid from getting precious power from a source that stood by it at critical times. He estimated that the wind power generating capacity in the affected areas might be around 200-300 MW and the cut would have affected about 100 MW. The other areas where wind mills were functioning in the district were not affected by this restriction.

He appealed to the TNEB to rollback its decision and exempt the feeders linked to wind farms from power cut. He pointed out that if one considered the power consumed from the grid, if the affected factories were allowed to work during power cut period, and the power fed into the grid by the windmills served by the same feeders during that time, the saving in power would not be much and TNEB should not be sending any wrong signals to the wind power generating companies at a time of crisis.

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