The Hindu Business Line : Power situation in Kerala to be grim

Kochi, Sept. 26 The power situation in Kerala this year is going to be grim as with the water storage as on date in the reservoirs of hydroelectric projects in the State, only 2,700 million units could be generated as against 3,900 million units last year, resulting in a shortage of 1,200 million units — consumption requirement for a month.

“We don’t expect that this shortfall can be made up by the ensuing northeast monsoon, which is predicted to be normal, and therefore, the crisis is likely to persist till the onset of the southwest monsoon next year,” senior KSEB sources told Business Line.

On the other hand, even though the State’s entitlement of power from the Central grid is 1,040 MW, what the State is getting, at present, is only around 800 MW because of maintenance of the plants. “We hope to get 900-930 MW of power from the grid from November-end, as there will be four per cent transmission loss and seven per cent auxiliary consumption, at Rs 2 a unit,” they pointed out.

Consumption

According to them, the daily consumption in the State despite the current load shedding and power cut comes to 42 million units and in the normal cases, it would have been above 44 million units.

The current daily shortage of 6 to 7 million units is met by purchase from the power exchange where it is available cheap for two to three hours after midnight. The KSEB purchases at this time so as to conserve the hydel power, they said. During the day time, the price goes up to Rs 10.50 a unit. The power cost at the NTPC Kayamkulam and BSES thermal plants is likely to drop to Rs 9 a unit as the naphtha price has shown a declining trend, they claimed.

Though the southwest monsoon rains commenced on time and remained by and large normal, it eluded the catchment areas of the hydel projects in the State this year. The catchment areas of all hydel projects, including the major Idukki and Sabarigiri, did not receive sufficient rains, with the result the water level in the reservoirs did not improve. For instance, the major Idukki reservoir has only 50 per cent of its capacity, they said.

Thermal power buy

Normally 65 to 75 per cent of the water in the reservoir used to arrive as the southwest monsoon reached its final days. Given the grim rain conditions prevailing in the State, KSEB might not be able to generate more than 10 million units from all its hydel projects daily, and to fill the gap, it would have to resort to purchase of thermal power at a higher cost besides operating its high cost diesel power plants to full capacity.

And yet there could be a shortage, they said. Therefore, cyclical 30-minute power cuts and the 25 per cent cut imposed on EHT/HT consumers is likely to continue indefinitely besides bringing in more restrictions on domestic and LT industries.

More Stories on : Power | Kerala

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page