The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Five gas-based power stations shut down

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Sunday, Jan 11, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Five gas-based power stations shut down

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: All the five gas-based power stations presently under operation have been shut down following stoppage of gas and naphtha supply to them by oil companies in the wake of the strike by their officers and truck-operators, leading to enhancement of power cut on rural and semi-urban areas.

The cut is being implemented on these areas to the extent of four to six hours a day as the shutdown of the gas-based stations of Lanco, GVK, Reliance, APGCL and Spectrum resulted in a loss of 1,270 MW at a time as they were operated at 80 per cent capacity before the closure. The daily energy loss has been put at nearly 20 million units. The energy availability was affected even before the closure of the gas-based stations and this was due to outage of some units at Kaiga atomic plant in Karnataka and Neyveli in Tamil Nadu from where the State gets a quota. These units had to be closed due to shortage of uranium and lignite.

AP Transco was forced to impose a ceiling on the drawal of power by the four distribution companies from the State grid. The discoms, in turn, implemented load-shedding to meet the unforeseen situation. The enhanced power cut on rural and semi-urban areas is likely to continue for a few more days. The strike in the oil companies has been called off, but the technicians of the companies will take some more time to open the wells and build up pressure to resume gas supply to the power stations.

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