As Central share falls, wind power to provide respite

The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO), on Saturday, decreased the outage level for the Low-Tension consumers as the generation of wind power and the output from the newly-constructed Mettur Stage III Power Plant considerably increased.

However, the central share to TANGEDCO was reduced to 2,400 MW instead of the allocated share of 3,515 MW. As per the data of the Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation (TANTRANSCO), the wind generation recorded on Saturday was 420 MW at 1.50 am and 821 MW at 7.50 am.

“Though we have an installed capacity of 7,114 MW, wind mills could generate 3,500 MW from second week of May till October. The generation will not be stable during the remaining months,” an official said.

However, wind mill operators and power managers said though wind power generation would pick up from the month of May, for the past two years, the season started in April itself.

As per the grid details of the TANTRANSCO on Saturday, 14.5 million units were received through the state grid from the wind mills to meet the 11,734 MW demand. The TANGEDCO supplied 230.104 million units.

Though the Central power stations, including Madras Atomic Power Station Unit II (220 MW), Karnataka Kaiga Atomic Power Station Unit IV (220 MW), Chennai Vallur NTPC Power Station (500 MW) and Unit V of Talcher Stage II (500 MW) stopped generation due to various reasons, the TANGEDCO managed to supply power with the help of the Mettur Thermal Power Station Stage III (600 MW), which generated around nine million units during the trial run conducted on Saturday.