Poor inflows or flood from upstream States, not the rainfall within the State, into major reservoirs in Telangana during 2023-24 has resulted in very low hydro-electric generation reducing it to the lowest since 2016-17, forcing the power utilities (distribution companies) to spend huge amounts to buy energy even during the flood season.
ADVERTISEMENT
From April 2023 to March 2024, the hydel stations of the Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TS Genco) have generated only 1,257.819 million units, including 1,168.044 MU at the projects in the Krishna Basin and the remaining 89.775 MU at the projects in the Godavari Basin.
Of the total installed hydel capacity of 2,441.76 megawatts, Krishna Basin projects have 2,369.6 MW (97%) capacity and Godavari Basin 72.16 MW.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Inflows from the upstream into major reservoirs continue through October generally and sometimes till the end of first half of November, but this year Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Pulichintala in the Krishna Basin, which had about 93% of the total hydel capacity of TS-Genco, did not surplus at all hitting the hydel generation badly,” a senior engineer told The Hindu.
Statistics of Genco’s hydel generation make it clear that the generation of low-cost energy has been lowest in 2023-24 since 2016-17. The generation utility has been at luxury in some of the recent years to bank the energy generated with the utilities of other States in need of energy during the flood season in the State and take it back when needed later. Unfortunately, it was not the case in 2023-24.
Even in the lean year 2023-24, 93% of the total energy generated was at the Krishna Basin project facilities and was possible as the management of hydel units was not handed over to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) by Telangana, as instructed by the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) citing the gazette notification of October 2021 and the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.
The Genco sources stated that they would not be free to commence generation whenever required based on the water availability in the projects in case the projects were handed over to the river board.