With marginal improvement in hydro power generation, the State Government on Monday directed the power distribution companies to progressively slash the evening load shedding from Tuesday.
While scheduled power cuts have been lifted in some major cities and district headquarter towns of the State, the remaining areas are facing more than three hours of load shedding. However, this has been restricted to two hours __ one hour each in morning and evening __ from Monday, Minister of State for Energy Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak told this paper after a review of the power situation in the State.
The shortage of power during the evening peak is about 500 MW and current water level in three reservoirs of Hirakud, Indrabati and Balimela will be enough to meet part of the shortfall, Nayak said and added plans are afoot to maximise the hydro power generation to 700 MW.
The sudden outage of one of the two units of Sterlite Energy at Jharsuguda has resulted in a net shortfall of 200 MW. The unit is expected to be back to the grid in a couple of days. Generation from the Sterlite unit will further improve the situation on power front and help the State to lift power cuts during evening hours. With the western part of the State experiencing widespread rains during the last few days, water level is increasing in Indravati, Upper Kolab and Rengali reservoirs. The Government is planning to increase Indravati hydro power station generation to about 150 MW from the present 55 MW.
The water level in Rengali reservoir, which remained almost at the minimum draw down level of 109.72 metres till a few days ago, started improving from Sunday. The hydro power station, which provided 35 MW during evening peak on Sunday, is expected to generate more as the water level improves, sources in Gridco said. While the State is facing power crisis, the poor allocation of power from the Central pool has further aggravated the situation. The State is getting 700 to 800 MW as against 1,050 to 1,100 MW from the Central pool.
The Ib Thermal Power Station is not able to generate power to its capacity due to supply of poor quality of coal. The State is getting 40 to 45 MW less power from Ib Thermal. The situation is worse in all the NTPC power plants, the sources said.
Comments
0 comment