BHUBANESWAR: Even as electricity consumers across the State are experiencing unscheduled power cuts for the last few days, it is now official that scheduled regulation has been effected from Thursday and will continue till the situation improves.
Pegging the current shortage of power at 450-500 MW, Gridco sources said the current crisis is due to poor hydel condition in major reservoirs of the State.
While the average demand of electricity in the State is 3,700 MW, the peak demand has touched 4,000 MW. The average generation of hydro power has been reduced to 750 MW as against 1,000 MW available a couple days back, official sources said.
“There will be power restriction of half an hour in phases from 6 am to 11 pm in CESU areas of operation,” said spokesperson of the Utility GB Sahu.
With a consumer base of over 20 lakh, CESU has power distribution business in nine districts of Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, part of Jajpur, Puri, Nayagarh, Khurda, Dhenkanal and Angul. While the average daily power demand of CESU is about 1,000-1,100 MW, the peak demand reaches up to 1,250 MW.
Gridco, the bulk power supplier to the State, is reported to have instructed the four distribution utilities, including NESCO, SOUTHCO and WESCO to go for ‘real time regulation’ which depends on the availability of power at a particular time, official sources said.
The sources said power restriction will be of one hour duration in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Puri while the load shedding will be of two hours in other urban centres. The rural areas are likely to face maximum load restriction.
As the water level in the six reservoirs, where hydro power stations are located, is significantly less than that of last year, the Water Resources department has put restriction on release of water for power generation purpose.
Southern and western Odisha districts, where the hydro power generating stations are located, have received deficit rainfall due to poor monsoon. The priority of the State Government is to preserve the water and use it judiciously to meet the irrigation needs of both kharif and rabi crops.
Water level in Upper Indravati in Kalahandi district is about 10 metres below the last year’s level of 641.47 mt. Its full reservoir level is 642 mt. Indravati Hydro Power Station has generating capacity of 600 MW and contributes significantly to the power need of the State.
Having a capacity to generate 2,085 MW, the hydro power stations are now generating 750 MW on an average while the peak hour generation is about 1,300 MW.