The Hindu Business Line : Rise in power demand, shortage of coal supplies — Karnataka overdrawing from hydel stations

Sources said that the State's hydel units were generating close to 35 million units per day. This was despite the fact that inflows into main hydel reservoirs, the Sharavathy Valley and the Supa dam, have reached critical storage levels. Reservoir levels in the Sharavathy Valley, the mainstay of Karnataka's hydel generation, were only 11 per cent of its gross capacity.

Currently the storage in the reservoir is 16,751 million cubic feet (mcft). Full storage capacity of the Sharavathy Valley is 1.51 lakh mcft (1,51,749 mcft). In fact, since the beginning of this month, the storage capacity was 14.8 per cent.

The sources said that one of the major reasons for the over-drawal was shortfall in coal supplies to the 1,470-MW Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS). The daily coal linkage to RTPS is 25,300 tonnes. The actual stockyard level was equivalent to less than five days of generation at plant load factor of 80 per cent.

Faced with this kind of a situation, the sources said, the 210-MW unit seven of RTPS was shut down in a bid to conserve coal supplies. The resultant shortfall in power supply was partly substituted by increased generation from the hydel stations. This was based on the assumption that monsoons would replenish any depletion in reservoir levels.

The over-drawal from the hydel resources was also triggered by increase in the consumption in the State. Consumption in the State was close to 100 million units per day till last month, mainly on account of increase in farm consumption.

However, after the off-season rainfall, farm consumption tapered off. This, in turn, has brought down the overall consumption down to 75 million units. But even at this level, it was at least 10 mu more than the corresponding period of last year.

The sources said that consumption was also brought down by introducing unscheduled load shedding in some parts of the State including rural areas. Unscheduled load shedding is a euphemism for unannounced power shutdowns.

Besides, financial constraints have also forced the State to resort to unscheduled load shedding instead of increasing availability. For instance, during the last few days, liquid fuel generation stations have backed down.

Backing down implied that the stations would be paid only deemed generation charges. Backing down of liquid fuelled stations was prompted by the high fuel costs. Liquid fuel stations are fired by naphtha, which is linked to an import parity price. Increases in international prices are treated as pass through item, which in turn pushes up the variable cost per unit.

Current international prices of naphtha are well over $400 a tonne, which would translate into a tariff of over Rs 5 a unit.

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