Odisha to sell surplus power to Karnataka

The Odisha government has decided to sell surplus power to Karnataka. 

The matter was discussed at a high-level meeting here on Monday, which was attended by chief secretaries of both states. Senior officials of the Odisha government’s Energy department were also present. 

“Karnataka Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee, who is in the State, had an official meeting with our Chief Secretary J K Mohapatra here on Monday, where a preliminary discussion on the power sale was held. Details will be worked out when officials of both states meet,” said sources in the Energy department.
At the meeting, the Karnataka chief secretary reportedly expressed his keenness to purchase power from a State-owned undertaking in Odisha rather than a private company.

If everything works out well, Karnataka will purchase power from the Grid Corporation of Odisha, a State-owned undertaking which purchases power from different sources, including private sector electricity generation companies in the State. It sells them to four power distribution utilities that supply power to consumers in four different zones in Odisha.

This will not be the first instance of Odisha, one of the very few power surplus states in the country, selling electricity to another state. It had earlier sold power to Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana.

If sources in the Energy department are to be believed, the average power requirement in Odisha at present stands at around 2,700 MW. The State currently gets about 3,000 MW from different sources, including its own thermal and hydro power stations, besides electricity generating private sector companies. “We get around 300 MW of surplus power at the moment which can be sold to other states”, an official in the Energy department said.