Power woes won't end soon

 
The shortage has resulted in widespread power cuts stretching for several hours, experienced for the first time in Bangalore. The City is still officially under one hour of load shedding, but in reality, consumers are experiencing anywhere from three hours to six hours of power cuts.

Soaring temperatures in the aftermath of Shivaratri have sent the demand surging to a whopping 145 million units. While the State is struggling to meet the demand, the tripping of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC)-run Talcher plant in Orissa has resulted in a loss of 150 MW to the State, according to Energy Secretary K Jairaj.

In addition, the State thermal plants at Raichur and Bellary have also lowered their production for the past two days resulting in a loss of about 200 MW. Jairaj said that they were trying to supplement the shortage from external sources, but it would take a few days to be resolved. The State has already started purchasing about 200 MW from Jindal and another 100 MW from Reliance to overcome the shortage.

‘Loss expected’

However, Karnataka Power Corporation Limited Managing Director S M Jaamdar opined that the loss from the State grid was not sudden or unexpected, but a factor in day to day operations. “When we are receiving power from multiple sources, such problems are bound to happen. At the thermal plants, production gets affected sometimes due to shortage of coal or the conveyor belt and other factors. But these things sort themselves in a day or two,” he said.

Jaamdar maintained that these were minor deviations common to power plants, but had a significant impact, as the State was already struggling with a severe shortage. The thermal plants, he said, have been operating at maximum capacity and were bound to come down for a day or two.

A meeting was convened on Thursday to discuss the situation and the Energy Secretary stated that they had an assurance from KPCL that the power generation would be upped by Friday.