Power-starved State to purchase 1030 MW daily from October 1

About 200MW were purchased on Wednesday at a cost of Rs nine/unit. The State has received permission to bid for 400MW to supply power from Wednesday night to Thursday midnight.

Sources in the Energy Department said the government would be purchasing 1,030MW daily from the October 1. This is likely to ease the power situation, which deteriorated as a result of coal shortage in the thermal power plants.

Officials said the department would purchase an additional 400MW from October 1 at rates varying between Rs 4.26 and Rs 5.87/unit. The State maybe forced to import power till May next year.

“We have been aggressively purchasing power from whatever sources possible by participating in bids and contacting a large number of power contractors. While the coal shortage did come as a hindrance, the department is yet to ascertain the reason for the sudden surge in the demand, especially in the last one week. We have never seen this kind of demand before,” said KPTCL managing director P Ravi Kumar. He said that around this time last year, the demand was about 109MU, while this year, as on Tuesday, the demand had peaked to 146 MU. “Without load-shedding, the demand would have reflected an additional 20 MU,” he added.

He said that by November 1, the State would be in a ‘comfortable situation’. Kumar said, “Apart from the contracted power, our own generation will increase with the BTPS and UPCL units starting generation.”

The department will effect scheduled load-shedding after reviewing the situation for another couple of days. “If things don’t improve, then scheduled load-shedding will be announced on October 1 or 2,” he added. The decrease in the production of wind energy has also contributed to the worsening of the situation. From a daily output of 1000MW, it has now come down to a mere 100MW. On Wednesday, however, there was marginal improvement in production with a generation of 200 MW.