The Southern Regional Power Committee (SRPC) has written to Union Ministry of Power seeking the latter’s intervention in ensuring higher power generation availability from the two units of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) during the peak summer season in the Southern region.
KKNPP’s two units have a capacity of 2,000 MW and Tamil Nadu has a share of 1,150 MW and remaining capacity is allocated to the other Southern States. Tamil Nadu has already been seeing record high power demand this summer season.
The Unit 1 of KKNPP has been under outage for refueling from January 29, 2024 and was expected to come on stream on April 16, 2024. However, the outage of the unit has been extended up to April 23 which is a matter of concern, K. Vijayanand, Chairperson, SRPC, pointed out in his letter to the Union Power Secretary.
He further pointed out at SRPC meeting the beneficiaries in the Southern region had requested Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) to operate the Unit-II on part load to ensure its availability till end of May 2024.
NPCIL has informed that the shutdown of Unit II has been compressed to 65 days as against 75 days from May 11 to July 13. However, the beneficiaries reiterated the request that the unit should be available till the end of May 2024 in view of high demand being faced in the Southern region, the letter said.
The general elections 2024 are being held during the period from April 2024 to June 2024 and uninterrupted power supply needs to be ensured, it added.
It sought the Union Power Ministry’s intervention for early revival of Unit-1 and shut down of Unit II to be taken up from June 2024 onwards.
Tamil Nadu has the highest power demand among Southern States. The Southern Region is expected to see a peak power demand of 68,000-69,000 MW in the March-April 2024. Tamil Nadu is expected to see a peak power demand of 21,000 MW.
Tamil Nadu has already seen a new record high peak demand of 19,409 MW on March 22 this year, surpassing the previous record of 19,387 MW set on April 20, 2023.
Meanwhile, the State reached a new peak energy consumption of 430.13 million units on April 2, surpassing the maximum consumption of 426.44 million units reached on March 29. In 2023, the peak energy consumption of 423.785 million units was on April 20.
Tangedco said it ensured power supply throughout the day.
Tamil Nadu has been allocated 7,170 MW as share of its power from central generating stations. However, as per the policy note of State’s Energy Department for 2023-24, at a time, the peak availability is only 5,900 MW.
