BENGALURU: The managing director of the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) held a meeting with extra high tension (EHT) power consumers here on Wednesday to convince them to use power back-up during the peak hours to reduce load.
Official sources said BESCOM has 62 EHT consumers under its jurisdiction, who draw power at 66 KV level through sub-stations.
Representatives from Hindustan Aeronautical Limited, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited, Toyota and Biocon were among those who attended the meeting chaired by Pankaj Kumar Pandey, BESCOM managing director.
In the meeting, the EHT consumers were asked to shift their load on power back-ups during peak hours for two to four hours both in the morning and the evening, which would save around 100 MW for BESCOM. The electricity supply company will provide this power to other consumers.
The EHT consumers have agreed to the idea and senior engineers of the areas concerned have been asked to cooperate with the EHT consumers.
BESCOM has assured the EHT consumers that the power situation will improve in a couple of weeks.
Power Situation
The state is facing a power shortage of 2,200 MW in terms of generation. The power demand of the state is 5,806 MW, whereas the production is between 2,800 and 3,000 MW. As for BESCOM, the demand load is 4,200 MW but it is receiving between 2,900 and 3,000 MW from the state grids.
The supply for BESCOM is short by 1,200 MW, which was 900 MW two days back, sources said.
‘North Karnataka Ignored’
Shivram Gaonkar, president, Uttara Kannada Bachao Andolan, held a press meet here on Wednesday to protest the state government’s apathy towards the northern Karnataka districts.
Gaonkar said, “Despite the Kaiga nuclear power plant being situated in northern Karnataka, the people of the region are deprived of electricity. The district needs only 105 MW, whereas Kaiga plant produces 880 MW. But still there is disparity in power distribution.”
Andolan members said that last week the district received four hours of the five-phase supply and three hours of the single-phase supply. They alleged that 3,853 hectares of forest land were destroyed to generate electricity in the district.
They claimed that 26 per cent of electricity was wasted due to transmission loss.