The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Hydel energy availability breaches last year’s mark

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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Hydel energy availability breaches last year’s mark

Special Correspondent

It touched 1,750 mu on Thursday as against 1,631 mu in 2008

Rains have raised hopes of managing power situation
Hydel storage is more than that of previous year

BANGALORE: For the first time this year, the total storage in the three major hydel reservoirs of the State on Thursday surpassed that recorded on the corresponding day last year.

The total hydel energy availability from the storage in the three reservoirs of Linganamakki, Supa and Mani touched 1,750 million units (mu) on Thursday as against last year’s 1,631 mu. Even on Wednesday, the energy availability was lower than the previous year’s by 34 mu. However, copious rains in the Western Ghats region have resulted in the water level going up and increasing the energy availability by 151 mu within 24 hours.

The major contribution for the increase in energy availability has come from Linganamakki reservoir which saw an inflow of 40,043 cusecs on Thursday morning. The storage level and energy availability in the reservoir touched 22.33 per cent and 1,018 mu respectively as against the previous year’s 19.51 per cent and 889 mu.

The storage level in Supa too has increased to 17.03 per cent as against the previous year’s 16.76 per cent while that of Mani stood at 19.96 per cent as against 21.88 per cent of the previous year. However, the overall hydel storage in the State is more than that of the previous year.

But it is interesting to note that last year had seen poor monsoon activity with deficient rainfall even as the Government has been comparing the present hydel storage position with the previous year’s. When compared with the position in 2007, which had seen good rainfall, the present position is still far from comfortable as the total energy availability from the hydel reservoirs stood at 4,193 mu during the corresponding period of that year as against the present level of 1,750 mu.

However, the rains in the last eight days have increased the hopes of the State managing to come out of the power crisis. The hydel energy availability has more than doubled from 853 mu to 1,750 mu in the last eight days due to good rains in the catchment areas of hydel reservoirs.

At present, there is an unscheduled load-shedding of about two hours a day in Bangalore, three hours in other cities and 12 hours in rural areas, as the hydel energy generation has been reduced due to the low storage in the hydel reservoirs.

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