Fifty days into the four-month monsoon season this Sunday, the hydel reservoirs in the State have storage touching only 31 per cent of their cumulative capacity.
This, in other words, is sufficient to generate only 1,270.027 million units of electricity. The seriousness of the power crisis looming on the State will become clear from the fact that on the same day last year the reservoirs held water equivalent to 2,732.912 million units of energy.
The Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) usually plans the generation of power at its hydel stations during the monsoon in such a way as to retain maximum possible storage in the reservoirs as the monsoon draws to a close in September. ‘The maximum possible storage’ this time, it is feared, might turn out to be far short of KSEB’s desire. It would, in its turn, lead to drastic power supply restrictions during the summer months.
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Idukki district, which holds more than half the total reservoir capacity in the State, is only 9 per cent deficit in monsoon rainfall so far. But, as on July 20, the storage in Idukki reservoir, which has a capacity to store water equivalent to 2,190 million units of power, came to only 607.511 million units — just 28 per of the capacity.
The KSEB, it appears, had not been able to allow the storage to improve beyond this low level since it had to sustain hydel generation at a higher level than anticipated even during monsoon. The daily power demand has been hovering at a high level. Average daily hydel generation in July till Sunday came to 22.256 million units, according the KSEB’s system statistics. The average daily demand during the period came to 56.3021 million units, with the balance energy required coming from Central power generating stations and the energy market.