Are We Really Power Poor?
Posted : June 22, 2006 at 10:16 pm [IST]
When Rajesh told me about his plan for coming to us in Noida in May-June for a month, I was worried. In the beginning of May itself, the power situation in Noida was precarious. Temperature was shooting up towards 40 degree C. Svanik, my grandson is America born, more correctly silicon-valley born, and is of two and a half year. I was worried to think for his restless night without air conditioner. I in consultation of my friends were planning to hire a diesel generator of sufficient power that can run at least one air conditioner. But we couldn’t locate the supplier of the automatic switchover type of the machine. I couldn’t think of renting the regular type that will keep on running with lot of noise and for starting every time I would have to get up. So we left to the destiny of UPSEB. They reached on 26th May and remained with us up to 7th June. Fortunately for them, the power outages were scarce. UPSEB had improved supply. Even now it is fine. We are sleeping well with air conditioner on. How could UPSEB improve the situation? Has Noida become politically important for the CM unlike Raebareli after the people there defeated CM’s party badly or as Sonia won with record margin? I wish Noida remained out of political battle.
UPSEB must have started managing the power distribution better. Today when I was going through some papers on power situations in India, I find a ray of hope. The situation is not bad. It just requires political will. India can be power surplus, and power outages will be part of history.
As on May 31, 2006, the total installed generating capacity of India is 1,24,272 Mw with 56% under states, 32% under central, and only 12% under private control. Our generating plants are 66% thermal, 26% hydro, and 3 % nuclear, with additional 5% renewable. And per capita, electricity consumption in 2004-05 was 600kwh/year.
Out of the installed capacity, only 85,000 mw was generated 2005-06. The peak shortage varied 11 per cent to 12 per cent.
Even the power ministry confesses it on its web site. “The poor performance of India’s existing generating units has been a principal cause of power storages and unreliable quality of power supply. The primary culprits are the coal-fired thermal power stations, which accounts for over 65% of total installed capacity. The average plant load factor (PLF) of thermal power stations in India is less than 60%, but varies considerably across regions.”
But if the Southern region can attain the PLF of 65.6%, why should the performance of the Eastern and the Northeastern regions vary between low PLFs of 38.5% and 26.8%, respectively and get tolerated and paid for? Why shouldn’t the state administration get up fast and start working?
If PLF of all the power stations were raised to 80 per cent, the peak shortage would disappear. Inefficient consumption today forms 20 per cent of total power consumed in the country. India must reduce it. With 10 per cent savings, the shortage would be wiped out. And all these are possible with better power management.
Will India Power Problems Behind?
- Indra
Category: Government Policy/Administration |
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