Energy Minister Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy has directed the officials to expedite the construction of the 800-MW units at the Dr. Narla Tatarao Thermal Power Station (NTTPS) and the Sri Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Station (SDSTPS) so that an additional 1,600 MW would be available at the earliest.
“The government is prepared to sort out any issue that may be hampering the projects,” he said in a review meeting on Wednesday.
The Minister said increasing the generation capacity was crucial as the State needed to overcome the emergency load shedding, which the power utilities were forced to resort to due to the coal crisis and other extraneous factors.
He observed that States such as Punjab, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu were having power-cuts. Andhra Pradesh too had a shortage, but supply disruptions could be minimised, he added.
Mr. Ramachandra Reddy said works on the Polavaram and Sileru hydel power projects should also be speeded up. These two projects would make 1,190 MW available.
“One thing to be kept in mind is that the cost of hydel generation is less compared to the output from thermal plants. If there are any issues in obtaining environmental and forest clearances, the same should be brought to the government’s notice so that it will talk to the Centre for sorting them out,” he said.
Further, the Minister said thermal plants in the State were now generating 5,010 MW and the hydel plants 1,774 MW. The grid was getting 405 MW from solar plants.
The State secured 3.548 million tons of coal linkage for the SDSTPS project, which reached the trial run stage, he added.
Energy Secretary B. Sreedhar and AP-Genco directors G. Chandrasekhar Raju (thermal) and Venkateswara Reddy (finance) were among those present.
