BHUBANESWAR: Reeling under acute electricity shortage due to unavoidable circumstances, the State has resorted to buying power from the spot market at high price to meet its burgeoning demand during peak hour.
Even as the peak load has come down by around 400 MW from 4,100 MW to 3,700 MW due to widespread rains across Odisha, the State faced a peak shortfall of about 2,060 MW and an average shortage of 1,650 MW on Thursday.
“We are buying around 1,000 MW from spot market at the Energy Exchange price of `4.50 per unit while another 600 units of unrequisitioned surplus (URS) are being sourced from inter-State generating stations (ISGS) through short-term open access transactions to stop load shedding as advised by the State Load Despatch Centre (SLDC),” a top official of Gridco said.
Unrequisitioned surpluses are the ones available due to the total requisitions being lower than total entitlement in some of the ISGS, he said.A power position report of SLDC said the total peak availability of power on the day was 1,710 MW against the demand of 3,770 MW leaving a deficit of 2,060 MW.
While the average power demand of Odisha was 3,400 MW, the day’s availability was 1,750 MW, the deficit being 1,650 MW. The State, which has an installed capacity of 2,027.5 MW hydro power stations, has generated 410 MW against its normal supply of over 1,500 MW.
Odisha is getting less power from NTPC’s Talcher Thermal Power Station (TTPS) and Super Thermal Power Station (STPS) at Kaniha as supply from these two plants has been affected due to shortage of coal. The State received only 210 MW from TTPS.
Attributing the acute shortage of power to lower generation from hydro and thermal power projects in Odisha, Energy Minister Dibya Shankar Mishra said, “Some of the hydroelectricity projects of the State have been shut down due to flood situation while others are running below the capacity for similar reason.”
Even as normalcy has been restored in coal mines at Talcher after 14 days of agitation, it will take another 72 hours to stabilise the NTPC power plants, he added.The Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) has shut down three of its hydro power plants at Burla, Chipilima and Rengali. The hydro power stations of Indravati are generating about 80 MW against its capacity of 600 MW. Similar is the situation at Balimela and Upper Kolab hydel power stations.