: The Andhra Pradesh power utilities have projected the revenue deficit for the 2017-18 financial year at Rs. 7,177 crore.
The utilities projected the annual revenue requirement for next fiscal at Rs. 30,069 crore while the projected revenue from power tariff including the non-tariff income is pegged at Rs. 22,892 crore.
Hike in service cost
The large deficit projection was chiefly due to the steep hike in average cost of service which was put at Rs. 5.94 a unit while the average revenue realisation was pegged at Rs. 4.53 a unit, leaving a huge gap of Rs. 1.42 a unit.
The increase was because of purchase cost adjusted for sale of surplus power, transmission and distribution losses, network cost and other costs. Increase in power purchase cost was resultant of increase in quantum of power purchased from renewable sources, increase in coal cess at Rs. 0.10 a unit, impact of pension liabilities, low energy availability from hydel sources. The higher fixed cost commitment due to undespatched energy has also been cited as one of the key reasons for increase in power purchase cost from Rs. 5.29 a unit to Rs. 5.94 per unit.
10,930 MU surplus
The utilities appeared comfortable on the availability side with an estimated 67,948 million units from all sources as against the requirement of 57,018 MU, leaving a surplus of 10,930 MU.
Of this, the estimated sale of surplus has been pegged at 2,208 MU that too in certain months when exchange price would be higher than the variable cost. The utilities in their ARR filed with the regulator - Andhra Pradesh Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Justice G. Bhavani Prasad, however, said that the proposed tariffs for all categories of consumers would be filed shortly.
On the supply side assumptions, the utilities projected availability of 46.11 per cent power for all existing thermal stations and power allocation for hydel stations owned by AP Genco and TS Genco considered as per geographical location.
The distribution companies considered 100 per cent share from the upcoming stations of RTPP-IV (600 MW from October next year), Krishnapatnam (1,600 MW) and Hinduja (1,020 MW) in their projection availability.
Demand-supply assumptions
On the demand side assumptions, the utilities considered seven-hour supply to the agriculture sector and 24-hour uninterrupted supply for all other categories while projecting 10.35 per cent growth in sales during the year.
The AP Genco on its part had considered various options for reduction in the variable costs including transportation of coal through rail route and making sure that no imported coal was used.
Margin from sale of surplus power had been pegged at Rs. 60.25 crore while it had also factored in cost reduction due to low capital expenditure and low interest rates in the multi-year tariff.
