The Hindu : Decision on power cut put off

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 20, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Decision on power cut put off

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM JUNE 19. With the storage level in the hydel reservoirs of the State still precarious, the KSEB is on the horns of a dilemma whether or not to go for a power cut.

Top officials of the KSEB met here today in the presence of the Electricity Minister, Kadavoor Sivadasan, to take stock of the situation on the power generation front. The meeting decided to wait for one more week before taking any drastic steps.

``It was a hard decision to take. If the skies do not open up, we are in for big trouble,'' an official said.

Though the monsoon has started bringing showers in the catchment areas of the hydel reservoirs in the State, the outlook is still extremely grim. The reservoirs now have water enough to generate only 240 million units of power.

The situation was exactly the same three days ago when the last evaluation meeting was held. The consumption of water for the generation of power kept pace with the inflow to the reservoirs during the last three days.

On June 16, against an inflow worth 6.3 million units, the KSEB generated 6.07 million units of power at its hydel stations.

The next day, the inflow was equivalent to just 4.79 million units, while the generation came to 5.31 million units. On June 18, the inflow was worth 5.61 million units and the generation, 5.20 million units.

Since the weather has cooled down following the rains, the consumers have automatically reduced the use of fans and air-conditioners. This has brought down the consumption of power in the State to some extent.

Thus, the generation of electricity at the hydel stations during the last three days need not be taken as the normal requirement under the present load-shedding regime.

If the consumers revert to their usual habit, the average generation at the hydel stations will have to be stepped up to 10 million units a day. Thus, the existing storage position in the reservoirs is sufficient to meet only 24 days' need.

There will be technical difficulties in keeping the generators running once the level in the reservoirs dips beyond a certain level and the water turns muddy.

The technical opinion is that the generators can be kept in operation perhaps for another fortnight.

According to Mr. Kadavoor, the meeting examined various options. The KSEB can immediately start regulating the use of whatever water is now available in the reservoirs so that it lasts six or eight more weeks.

This will mean cutting the hydel generation to half or one-third the present rate. The result will be immediate imposition of power cuts to industries and more load-shedding to the other consumers.

Or the KSEB can continue the present regime of one-hour loadshedding in rural areas and 30-minute load-shedding in urban areas keeping the hydel generation at the present rate.

This will be a big gamble, with everything depending on the monsoon picking up and blessing the State with very good rains, starting immediately.

If the rains do not come, the hydel stations will have to be shut down a fortnight hence and the State will have to depend solely on thermal power available from two KSEB stations, the Kayamkulam station of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and the Central grid. This will be an expensive proposition.

One good development is that the flow of power from the Eastern grid has now been restored to the original level, since a snag in the Talchar-Kolar transmission line that had disrupted the flow has been set right. Kerala is getting 100 MW of power along this line.

But there is still a shortage of 80 MW in the supply from the Ramagundam station of the NTPC, where a 500 MW generator is under repair. This is likely to be set right by June 30.

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