Comments
The difference between planned and actual hydropower generation in the country narrowed down to 1.09 per cent during the current financial year.
According to data compiled by the National Power Portal, actual hydropower generation from April 1 to August 29 this year stood at 64,647.30 million units. This is just 1.09 per cent lower than the 65,361.83 million units of planned production in the same time period.
The hydropower generation plan is determined by the Central Electricity Authority taking into account various factors such as expected new capacity additions, availability of existing capacity (which is affected by planned and unplanned outages) and water availability in the reservoirs. The lower generation target was due to lesser water availability.
The closest comparable data of the last financial year available on the portal is on September 1, 2017. Hydropower generation stood at 67,751.44 million units against a target of 72,199.42 million units during the April 1, 2017 to September 1, 2017.
“The deficit between planned and actual hydro generation increased to 7 per cent in 2017-2018 from 3 per cent in 2016-2017 and the target generation has been scaled down in 2018-2019, ” Yogesh Daruka, Partner – Power & Utilities, Mining at PwC, told BusinessLine .
Poor availability of power from some of the state-owned projects on account of outages contributed significantly to the scaling down of hydro power generation target. Most of the hydropower capacity in the States is aged and in need of significant renovation and modernisation, he added.
“The level of water storage in the major reservoirs in India in March was only 89 per cent of the storage of corresponding period in 2016-2017 and 91 per cent of the average of the last 10 years (largely on account of erratic rainfalls/ deficient monsoon) – CEA would have considered this in setting the target generation,” Daruka said.
“The actual pace of new capacity additions has been slow and partially contributed to the hydropower generation deficit of 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. The total hydropower capacity addition in last two years was 9 per cent and 25 per cent of the target additions,” Daruka added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.