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Thursday, Mar 20, 2008
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State to buy power from PTC

R.K. Radhakrishnan

To meet peak summer demand
It will be supplied at Rs. 7 a unit

CHENNAI: In view of the grim power situation in the State, Tamil Nadu has entered into an agreement with the Power Trading Corporation (PTC) for buying 400 MW to meet the peak summer demand, which could touch the 9,500-MW mark.

As per the agreement, power will be supplied to Tamil Nadu at Rs.7 a unit but consumers here will not pay more. The other part of the agreement is that the PTC will buy power from Tamil Nadu at the same rate when the State has excess capacity. Currently, Tamil Nadu’s rate of buying power from producers in the State is Rs. 2.90 a unit and the selling rate is Rs.5.02 a unit.

Electricity Minister Arcot N.Veeraswami told The Hindu that production of 8,000 MW was being augmented by 500 MW purchased from other States including Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Orissa at Rs.7 a unit. “With Punjab we have a mutually beneficial agreement. When our power demand peaks, they have excess power which they give us. We return the favour when they need power at the same price,” he said.

Added to the total available power of 8,500 MW is Kadamparai’s 400 MW. This is available during peak hours, for about 4 hours a day. That plus the 300 MW saving per day, result of the government decision to insist on ‘working day holiday’ for industries was enough to meet the present demand, he said. Many industrialists are not pleased with the decision. Some of them said that if this was a temporary measure, they had no problems complying. If it lasted more than a month, they would have too many practical problems to contend with, they added.

Rain relief

It is not merely water managers who are happy with the recent spell of rain. Mr.Veeraswami and his team at the Electricity Board are heaving a sigh of relief.

“The rains across the State have been very good. This straight away ensures that farmers do not use pumpsets. The savings in terms of power are tremendous,” he said.

Meters in transformers

Mr. Veeraswami said that given the situation, the Board was installing meters in all transformers in the industrial belt. “We do not need to meter the nearly 70,000 agricultural transformers. They are anyway free connections. We will monitor all industrial transformers for misuse. This has already begun yielding results,” he said.

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