Restore surrendered 500 MW: State to Centre

BHUBANESWAR: Faced with an acute shortage of electricity, the State Government on Tuesday asked the Centre to restore 500 MW  which it had earlier surrendered from its allocated share to the central pool. “We are not seeking any favour from the Centre. But the State wants restoration of 500 MW of power surrendered by it earlier,” Minister of State for Energy Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak told this paper.After the stage-II expansion of the NTPC’s Kaniha super thermal power station, the State Government refused to take the additional allocation of 500 MW from the Central share. Having a low demand, the State was surplus with power then.Power situation became worse with the failure of the second unit of OPGC’s Ib thermal power station on Tuesday. The second unit went out of the grid at about 1.46 pm but normalcy was restored immediately. However, the unit malfunctioned again and went out of grid after an hour. The State is facing a shortage of about 1,000 MW during the evening peak. Against a demand of 3300 MW, the availability of power during the evening peak hour was 2,300 MW, sources in the State Load Despatch Centre said.Though the State used to avail of 500 MW of power from hydel sector a couple of days ago, there is a drastic fall in the power generation due to restriction imposed by the Water Resources Department on the release of water from reservoirs having hydro power generating stations.The generation from hydel sector has come down to about 230 MW on Tuesday, the sources said. “The power crisis in the State became deepened as it received only 530 MW from the central pool against the usual drawal of 780 MW,” Gridco CMD Hemanta Sharma said. NTPC’s units at Kanhia, Kahalgaon, Farraka and Teesta supplies about 250 MW less than the usual supply to the State, Sharma added.Under a similar crisis situation last year and the year before, the State Government had requested the Centre to allocate additional power from the central pool to meet the crisis. Though the Centre promised to supply additional 350 MW from the central pool last year, it supplied only 50 MW for a few days and then stopped it.The State was experiencing shortage of thermal power due to low generation of thermal power ostensibly due to non-availability of coal at different thermal power units, Sharma informed. However, the captive power plants (CPPs) have come to the rescue of the State. While the CPPs used to supply 350 MW to the State, they are now contributing about 600 MW, Sharma said.