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New capacity addition during December and the fourth quarter of the current financial year is likely to partially improve the demand-supply situation in Andhra Pradesh.
The new capacity will come from the 800 MW AP Genco’s Krishnapatnam unit one, the 520 MW unit one of the Hinduja power project and 50 MW from the Nagarjunasgar tail pond power plant. In addition, the State would be able to get 255 MW from the power plant in Tuticorin and 120 MW from Central generating stations, N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, said.
Further, the State would be able to add another 800 MW from unit II at Krishnapatnam, 600 MW from the Kakatiya thermal power plant and 520 MW from the Hinduja power project during 2014. The renewable segment would contribute about 1000 MW, with 500 MW from solar power projects and another 500 MW from wind farms, he said.
Speaking at the sixth power plant awards meet late on Friday, he said about Rs 8,000 crore would be invested in strengthening the transmission network over the next four years.
Referring to gas-based power plants, he said, “our policies seem to have gone wrong. AP alone has an installed capacity of 7000 MW of gas plants and barely a tenth of this is now in operation due to lack of gas supply.”
On the growing cost of power over the years, he said the cost of energy used to be 25.7 paise per unit in 1970 and last year it was around Rs 4.11 per unit in the State. The prices have gone up due to fuel cost hike, overhead costs and transmission and distribution losses.
However, the State has managed to bring down transmission losses from 24.15 per cent a few years ago to 15.72 per cent now as against the national average of 24 per cent.
On the importance of power supply to ensure good farm sector output, he said the State has provided about Rs 30,000 crore in subsidies to the farming community from the year 2004. This year the subsidy was likely to be around Rs 4,300 crore, he said.
>rishikumar.vundi@thehindu.co.in
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