The Hindu Business Line : Rains ease up power crisis

Widespread rains over the last 48 hours have partially eased the power demand, including from the agriculture sector bore wells, thereby enabling the Government to reduce power cuts.

As per estimates, the demand has come down from a peak of 181 million units to about 160 million units a day. Even though this is more than the consumption of 140 mu same time last year, the demand was being met through additional purchases.

The State Power Minister, Mr Mohd. Ali Shabbir, said as against the power cuts announced recently, this would be brought down to just two hours a day in some parts of the State while ensuring seven-hour supply to farmers.

The Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (AP Transco) had supplied about 166 mu per day on an average during September.

The situation had turned problematic due to a dry spell of about 35 days during August 6 to September 13.

WATER STORAGE

Explaining the rationale of relatively lower power generation in the hydel projects, the Minister said that this was aimed at storing the available water for the summer months and season ahead. As against total generation capacity of 40 mu at Srisailam up to 20 mu is being generated by discharging about 40,000 cusecs into the Nagarjunasagar reservoir.

In order to coordinate irrigation and power requirements and for water conservation and economy, the power generation at Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar powerhouses has been limited to a maximum generation capacity of 20 million units per day and seven million units per day respectively.

To conserve water for the kharif season and the following rabi season and to meet water requirements during summer months, the shortfall in power requirement is now met with additional power from the Central grid and by purchasing power at an additional cost of Rs 11.2 crore a day from other States.

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