Residents across the city have been cribbing about the frequent interruptions in power supply. Over the past two days, residents of Jal Vayu Vihar, Indiranagar and Vijayanagar have been complaining about unscheduled power cuts.
Zubeida Alam (name changed), resident of H.V.R. Layout in Vijayanagar, said that her area had frequent disruptions through the day on Sunday. “We did not seem to have power for even two hours at a stretch. When we contacted the local Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) office, we were told that it was due to load shedding.”
Until now, the State’s capital has not had any disruptions in power supply, even when the peak load demand has been hovering above 7,100 MW. The daily requirement for Bescom is around 3,000 MW.
Given the shortage in generation, Bescom is now hoping to get an additional allocation of 300 MW. Officials said that this had been okayed by Minister for Energy Shobha Karandlaje. “This will hopefully ease the situation and Bescom may not be required to enforce load shedding in the city,” they added.
However, they conceded that they had to enforce some load shedding for a few hours on Sunday and Monday mainly due to the decrease in the wind generation. According to a senior official, the average wind generation is around 650 MW, while it can even touch 1,000 MW on “good, windy days.” However, due to unforeseen circumstances, the wind generation had decreased to around 95 MW.
This sudden shortfall had affected the power supply to the city. However, with rains lashing the city and Kolar, the demand for power had come down by around 200 MW.
The official added that with the sudden shortfall in wind generation, the hydel generation could also not be stepped up, given the poor storage in the hydel reservoirs. The poor storage level is due to lack of rains and poor inflow into the reservoirs. According to a statement issued by the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd., the storage level (as on Thursday) in 13.95 per cent in Linganmakki, 13.65 per cent in Supa and 19.35 in Mani reservoirs. Same time last year, the average storage in these three reservoirs was around 28 per cent.
Bescom officials conceded that they were now hoping that the wind generation picks up, besides improvement in the storage in hydel reservoirs. “This alone can ensure that power supply is uninterrupted across the State, especially in the city,” they added.
