MADURAI: Electricity Minister Arcot N Veeraswami urged the Centre to set up a national grid for electricity to facilitate integrated transmission and supply of electricity.
Inaugurating the eigth meeting of Southern Electricity Regulatory Commissions’ Conference, Veeraswami said that the isolation of Southern grid had deprived the advantages of daily and seasonal variations. Further, the grid could not enjoy the surplus in other grids, he pointed out.
The charges for overdrawal of Southern States from the grid is higher when compared to the rest of the grids, he observed. He appealed to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to prescribe lesser charges for overdrawal for the States from the Southern grid till the national power grid was set up.
The request of Karnataka chairman K P Pandey to implement standard tariff in all the states will be tough to implement, Veeraswami said and added that it may be possible in the future if the Centre takes a policy decision to use nuclear power and solar power. .
Efforts are on to increase the power production by 6,000 MW through setting up of the power stations in the State in the 11th Plan period, Veeraswami said. Under this Plan, two 600 MW power stations at NCTPS, a 600 MW power station at Mettur, three 500 MW power stations in Vallur, near Chennai, two 500 MW power stations at Thoothukudi, two 800 MW Super Critical Thermal Plants at Udangudi in Thoothukudi and a 100 MW smaller hydro project.
The State had approved the TNEB to set up a 600 MW plant at Ennore and two 600 MW plants at Kattupalli. Complementing this, the NLC’s 500 MW capacity expansion and two 1,000 MW atomic energy plants at Koodankulam will be commissioned by next year, Veeraswami said and added that the Principal Clearances have also been given for the establishment of 4,000 MW Ultra Mega Project at Cheyyar and 1,600 lignite based power project at Jayankondam by the NLC.
‘Unbundling of EB will improve efficiency’
Unbundling of Electricity Board by setting up separate corporations for production, transmission and distribution without any political intervention will help improve the efficiency in supply, said Pramod Deo, chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, here on Tuesday. Deo told reporters that the move will also curb the loss in transmission which will directly have a positive impact in the cost of power. Therefore, the electricity tariff might also come down. An independent model of functioning will help bring down the cost of production and will also curb the energy loss in the State. On power production cost, Deo said that the cost of production of a single unit had shot up to Rs 18 from Rs 14 owing to the surge in the prices of raw materials used for power production.