BANGALORE: Trouble in the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) has left Bangaloreans in the dark what with some parts of the city suffering load shedding for four to six hours.
“The RTPS units noted low generation because of wet coal that were fed into the boiler,” said S M Jaamdar, managing director of KPCL.
He said the coal got wet in the rain. He added that now they were taking all precautions and power generation was expected to increase to 750 MW on Thursday.
On Monday, the utilities were forced to switch to unscheduled power cuts after their operating capacity was reduced to 400 MW.
Five units of RTPS have been fixed, while unit 6 will be operational from Thursday.
Unit 4 was closed down for annual maintenance and is expected to resume production this month.
WATER WOES IN RESERVOIRS
The level of water in the three state reservoirs are lower than last year.
According to the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited, the water level on July 14 in Linganamakki was 1759.85 ft, as against 1776.90 ft one year ago.
Supa recorded 526.62 ft last year, while it is 519.61 ft this year. Mani has 575.06 ft against 578.30 ft recorded last year.
The peak load demand of the state, which currently stands at 5,361 MW, is mainly met from the hydel sources.
The total power availability from the three major reservoirs as on Wednesday was 59 per cent of what it was last year.
Accepting that generation from hydel sources was low, P Venkatesh, technical director of KPCL, said, “We were expecting some respite in June, but that did not happen.”