Energy Secretary B. Sreedhar on Saturday said the DISCOMs were resorting to Emergency Load Relief (ELR) only after exhausting all the options available for procuring power, and insisted that it was a temporary phenomenon, which the consumers had to bear with lest grid safety should suffer.
He claimed that the ELR was necessitated by a significant increase in consumption to an average of 235 Million Units (MU) per day in March-April compared to 200 MU to 210 MU and 160 to 170 MU in the corresponding periods of 2021 and 2020. The consumption in 2020 was low due to the COVID lockdown and it went up the next year (2021) because of the revival of at least 50% of the industrial activity.
Post-COVID, i.e. in March-April this year, there was a full-scale recovery of the industrial sector, so much that even sick units came back into production owing to impressive growth in demand.
Peak demand
This season, the peak demand of 240 MU was registered on April 7 and the combined consumption of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana was about 500 MU.
The prevailing crisis would subside by the end of April. Power was now being purchased mostly a day in advance and on a real-time basis to make up for the acute shortage, he said.
Availability
Addressing mediapersons here, Mr. Sreedhar said there was an availability of 80-85 MU from the AP-Genco plants, 45 MU from the NTPC and Central generating stations, 10 MU from the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), 25 MU from solar, 10 MU from wind and 188 MU from nuclear and other sources. These contracted capacities were fully operational.
Still, the shortage was about 50 MU, of which 30 MU was being purchased from the exchanges. The entire requirement could not be sourced from the exchanges as they were rationing the supply because several States vied to buy power.
In March, 1,551 MU was purchased at a total cost of ₹1,258 crore which worked out to ₹8.11-a-unit.
Mr. Sreedhar said the AP-Genco’s thermal plants were not having enough buffer stocks of coal, but were able to get the fuel on a daily basis (their daily requirement was 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes). Coal shortage in the country began in October 2021 and the Ministries of Coal, Power and Railways were jointly looking into the supplies needed by States.
A third of the consumption was from the agriculture sector. The situation would ease by the month-end once the harvesting was completed when the consumption would fall by up to 15 MU. In spite of the tough situation, power was being supplied for seven hours during the day to the farm sector.
Mr. Sreedhar said there was ELR in Bengaluru and Chennai and even Gujarat had a power holiday, as all those States were under stress due to the rebound in economic activities.
The average demand in Andhra Pradesh from 2014-15 ranged from 132 MU to 190 MU. The new 800-MW unit at Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Station at Krishnapatnam was poised for commissioning next month.
The 800-MW unit at Narla Tatarao Thermal Power Station near Vijayawada would, however, be ready for commissioning after three to four months due to delay in the completion of Balance-of-Plant (BoP) works, Mr. Sreedhar added.
