The rains of these past few days have brought temporary relief to the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) by bringing down the power demand; but the outlook post-May 20 is grim.
The assessment within the KSEB is that it may have to seek the permission of the government to go for a load-shedding when emerging issues make it difficult for the power utility to meet the normal power demand, a top official told The Hindu on Saturday. “We may reach a crisis situation by May 20; but it also depends on a lot of other factors,” he said.
These are the issues ahead:
The KSEB has planned a 20-day unavoidable complete shutdown of the Moozhiyar hydel station for maintenance work from May 20. This would lead to a drop of 250 MW on the grid.
The Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCL) has scheduled a 45-day shut down of one of the inter-State transmission lines from May 25 for maintenance work. This would lead to a drop of even 500 MW of imported power on the State grid.
The official said it would become difficult for the KSEB to make good the drop in power availability caused by the above two scheduled events by increasing the generation of power within the State using all the available means. “The latest information is that the PGCL may postpone the scheduled shutdown — so that too is a possibility,” he said.
The rains brought down the power demand in the State from a daily average of 66 mu during the height of the summer to around 53 mu during the days of an unexpectedly heavy spell of summer rains last week. The KSEB had been working its hydel stations at an unsustainable level of up to 30 mu of power on several days during the hot days of the summer to supplement the maximum possible power imports so that the high power demand is satisfied.
The water storage position allows the KSEB the comfort of generating only around 20 mu of power at its hydel stations each day until the onset of the monsoon.
The summer rains of last week helped the KSEB to bring down the hydel generation to this sustainable level; but it may shoot up to unsustainable levels once the cool relief of the summer rains has vanished.
