State power employees worried about fate of two thermal plants

‘Situation will spin out of control if plans are not dropped’

The Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) power sector employees have resolved to stage demonstrations at all generating stations in protest against reported attempts by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to take over the Rayalaseema Thermal Power Plant (RTPP) and plans of some private players to bid for O&M activities at the Sri Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Station (SDSTPS) as a prelude to acquiring full control.

In a letter to the Energy Secretary N. Srikant, APSEB Engineers’ and Assistant Engineers’ Associations and A.P. Power Diploma Engineers’ Association said that there was a meagre capacity addition of 450 Megawatts (MW) in the base load, but the energy consumption was more than 36% in the 4th control period (April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2024).

If the 1,650- MW RTPP is withdrawn at this juncture, the State’s burgeoning requirement could not be met by AP-Genco.

Further, the gap has to be filled by resorting to short-term purchase of power or buying it from the energy exchanges, which will be more costly during the power shortage period than the cost of power generated by RTPP.

Further, making fresh capacity additions takes up to six years and the costs will be far higher than in the present scenario.

The associations also expressed the apprehension that a reverse pumping plant was proposed to be built at a huge capital cost for balancing the variable renewable energy.

The cost of such generation is estimated to be about ₹10 per unit. Besides, a letter of credit provision is to be made for NTPC and it is going to impose an extra burden on the public exchequer.

The present installed capacity, including those of the AP-Genco’s thermal plants which are considered as base-load plants, is 10,853 MW.

A base capacity of nearly 11,300 MW is required by 2023-24 and Other Than Base (OTB) capacity of approximately 9,240 by the same year (total roughly 20,540 MW). The existing OTB capacity is 8,440 MW.

The power employees demanded that the government take stock of the situation immediately and drop any move of handing over the public sector plants to private entities.