CHENNAI: State Electricity Minister P Thangamani met Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi on Tuesday to place a request for allotting an additional rail four rakes for transportation of more coal to the State.
“We had requested a total of 20 rakes to increase the stock of coal. The minister told us today that 16 rakes would be allocated daily and it would be increased when the situation improves,” an official statement quoted the Minister as saying.
Responding to allegations from opposition party members that parts of the State are suffering from unscheduled power cuts, the Minister said that the State was power-surplus.
Since the generation of wind energy suddenly dipped in the first week of September and since the Central thermal power stations and the Kudankulam nuclear power plant were closed for maintenance, some parts of the State witnessed power outages. However, the situation was resolved the next day by bringing thermal plants into operation, he said.
The situation has improved now since the wind energy generation has gone up to 2000 MW from Tuesday and hence generation in thermal power plants has been reduced, the statement added.
Meanwhile, at the 28th meeting of the Southern Zonal Council, chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam said, “The efforts towards developing renewable energy should be encouraged by the Government of India by removing bottlenecks in the exchange mechanism, particularly, in the commercial terms, such as frequency linked penalty and compensation charges for power from Central generation stations,” according to a separate statement.