No load shedding plan in Kerala, Power situation under control says Krishnankutty
KOCHI: Dismissing fears that the state will be forced to impose load shedding to manage the rising power consumption, Electricity Minister K Krishnankutty said on Thursday that the power situation in the state is under control.
A meeting of the top officials of the KSEB convened by the minister on Thursday observed that the steps taken by the board to reduce peak-hour consumption have started yielding results. The state’s peak demand had touched 5,854 MW on May 2.
The daily consumption set a new record of 115.94 million units on May 3. The minister had held discussions with representatives of employees' unions on Wednesday seeking suggestions to tide over the crisis.
“We have been able to reduce the peak demand by 117 MW with the support of commercial and public sector consumers. The board had held talks with big industries, Kerala Water Authority, Light Irrigation projects and pubic sector units on the need to reduce consumption during peak hours. The public sector and big industries have re-scheduled the shifts to reduce power consumption,” the minister said.
The meeting also discussed the problem of transformer shortage as the equipment had blown up due to overload in many areas. As Kerala Electricals Ltd has not been able to deliver transformers on time, the board has acquired transformers from other companies. The board has taken steps to replace defective meters. The CMD has issued an order allowing local purchase of fittings in case of emergency.
The meeting decided to take corrective measures to avoid power outages due to overload. The maintenance works of substations will be expedited to ensure smooth transmission of power. Additional shifts have been implemented at the five transformer and meter repair units of KSEB to repair transformers that have blown up due to overload. Senior officers in the rank of deputy chief engineer have been directed to conduct field inspections in districts where control rooms have been set up to monitor the power distribution.
Additional chief secretary K R Jyothilal, CMD Rajan N Khobragade and KSEB directors attended the meeting.
Max demand declined by 493 MW on Wednesday
The summer rain came as a blessing in disguise for KSEB on Wednesday as the peak demand declined to 5,251 MW registering a drop of 493 MW over the previous day’s maximum demand of 5,744 MW. However, there was no major decline in daily consumption which stood at 109 million units compared to 110.02 million units on Tuesday.