Tata Power plans infrastructure boost with Rs 344 crore investment
BHUBANESWAR: A month after taking over the management of Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU), the Tata Power has submitted a capital investment plan of Rs 344.44 crore to the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) for approval.
The Tata Power Central Odisha Distribution Limited (TPCODL) has proposed the capital expenditure (capex) for 2020-21 to carry out various activities under five major heads such as statutory compliance/safety, loss reduction, reliability improvement, load growth and technology and infrastructure development.
One of the major challenges for TPCODL is the present dilapidated network which is not compliant to statutory guidelines and poses a threat to safety of employees, public at large and animals.It would take `2600 crore worth of investment to ensure that entire network is compliant to statutory guidelines for supply of quality power uninterruptedly to the consumers. Such a huge investment would adversely impact tariff and as such TPCODL has staggered investment in eight years. With capex investment of `344.44 crore planned for year 2020-21, the utility shall start its journey on the path of becoming a benchmark utility in next 10 years, the company said in its proposal.
The distribution license area spread over an area of 29,354 sq km with a consumer base of 26 lakh in nine districts, the company proposed to build a robust IT infrastructure with an investment of `92.46 crore.
Attributing the huge aggregated technical and commercial (AT&C) loss of the utility to large number of un-metered consumers and defective meters, TPCODL has proposed to invest `73.27 crore on loss reduction measures.
“Leveraging meter technology and conducting drives of meter replacement and installation of meters at distribution transformers shall be critical for improving energy accounting,” it said. The other interventions includes installation of state of the art equipment to ensure better operation and control of the network and faster restoration of supply in case of interruptions.
TPCODL, which took over the assets of erstwhile CESU on “as is where is” basis, said these assets are not in good operating condition and in a large number of cases, the safety equipment are not in place. It proposed to invest `72.80 crore on statutory safety measures.
If the capex proposal of TPCODL is approved by OERC it will impact the consumers as the investment to be made will be transferred in shape of retail tariff.
Earlier, the company had said that it has no plans to ask for a revised retail tariff for the current fiscal that has been determined by the commission.
PROBLEM AREAS
Large number of un-metered consumers and defective meters
Power assets not in good condition
Dilapidated network, no safety measures in place