The State received a major fillip in its power sector with the commencement of the trial run for announcement of commercial operations date of A.P Power Generation Corporation’s 800 MW unit at Krishnapatnam thermal power project.
The commercial operations of the unit, along with grid synchronisation, would commence soon after the 72-hour trial run is completed successfully. “The plant has to run at its capacity (800 MW) continuously for us to declare the unit as capable of delivering its rated capacity,” APGenco chairman and managing director K. Vijayanand told The Hindu.
The declaration of commercial operations date would enable the power utilities to fix the generation as well as revenue, both fixed and variable costs. The utilities accordingly positioned sufficient buffer stock of coal required for the declaration. The requirement of the new unit is fixed at seven million tonne a day and the Genco had ensured stock of 50 million tonne so far at the unit while another 50 million tonne is said to be on its way to reach Krishnapatnam in a couple of days.
The declaration of the COD, however, is set to trigger a controversy between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in view of the teething troubles between the two states over power sharing. Even as the Telangana Government sought its say in the management of the project, the AP power utilities appear to be in no mood to concede the demand.
Moreover, the Eastern and Southern power distribution companies, in their annual revenue requirement submitted to the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission, gave projection that 100 per cent of the production from Krishnapatnam plant would be utilised by the State. The utilities in their supply side assumption projected availability of 15,581 million units of power to the State considering 100 per cent allocation from Krishnapatnam and Hinduja plants while they had projected 46.11 per cent allocation from all other stations in line with the Government orders (GO 20) post bifurcation.
