Transco determined to cut power purchase cost

Net savings of ₹132 cr. effected in April, says CMD

In view of the corona pandemic and the lockdown, an AP Transco team, under the guidance of the Chairman and Managing Director N. Srikanth, is focused on steps to reduce the power procurement cost.

All bulk consumers such as industries, railways, commercial establishments, HT consumers, function halls, malls and theatres are shut down and only critical healthcare, government machinery, domestic and agriculture loads are being serviced by the grid.

The peak demand of the State has shifted from 11,000 MW to 8,500MW and the minimum demand is pegged at 6,000MW, instead of 8,000MW during normal times.

According to the officials, the continuous availability of coal, fall in international gas and oil prices have ensured adequate supply while the demand is hovering at 65 to 70% of the usual peak loads experienced during summer. By assessing how the power exchanges will respond to these scenarios, the commercial teams are carefully placing bids in the DAM (Day ahead market) or TAM (term ahead market).

An efficient team of power system engineers, qualified chartered accountants, statisticians and IT professionals was roped into the Andhra Pradesh Power Coordination Committe (APPCC) to make daily decisions of purchase through exchange and the SLDC takes up the economic load despatch based on these day-ahead demand and supply forecasts. Transco Joint Managing director KVN Chakradhar Babu is entrusted to see that these wings of APPCC operate in close cooperation.

Coal stocks

All high-cost conventional energy sources are kept under reserve shut down and these thermal stations were asked to stock the coal for meeting the exigencies. As on date, the GENCO stations have the stocks that would be sufficient for 2 to 3 weeks of operation. VTPS has buffer for 18.93 days, RTPP for 27.65 days and Krishnapatnam units have stocked coal for the next 14 days.

The gap due to reserve shutdown of the State Genco is being tied up from the exchange, duly leveraging the situation. On an average, 15 to 25 MUs per day were purchased from the power exchanges in April, accounting for a total of 824.88MUs and the prices ranging between ₹2.16 and ₹2.66 per unit.

“With this, the per unit average procurement cost from the exchange is ₹1.6 less than the average power procurement cost allowed by the APERC. This resulted in net savings of ₹132 crore in April,” explained Mr. Srikant, who is also the Energy Secretary.

Energy Minister Balineni Srinivas Reddy has appreciated the efforts of providing quality uninterrupted supply to hospitals and the domestic and agriculture sectors during the crisis period.