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Coal crisis: PSPCL failed to follow central norms on maintaining fuel reserve
For lack of advance planning, PSPCL is not only buying power at ₹11.80 per unit, but it also missed an opportunity to sell electricity to the national grid in October
The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) is itself to blame for the persisting coal crisis in power plants in the state as it failed to adhere to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) norms on maintaining minimum fuel reserves, people familiar with the situation said.
As a result, the corporation is not only buying power at a whopping ₹11.80 per unit, but it also missed an opportunity to sell electricity to the national grid in October.
A power engineer dealing with coal procurement said, “The corporation management didn’t pay heed to our advice to build coal stock as per the guidelines, saying the demand will dip in the wake of the Covid-19 third wave. But the demand went up against their expectations.”
As per figures, the government-run Ropar thermal plant on June 1, 2019 had coal stock for 48 days against 23 days on the corresponding day this year. Similar was the situation at the Lehra Mohabbat plant. Similarly, the private thermal plants didn’t adhere to the guidelines on maintaining coal stocks.
According to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission guidelines, the power plants in Punjab have to ensure a minimum stock of 30 days, as all of them are located more than 1,500 km from coal mines.
The private sector plants had no stock as they as keep limited reserves to cut their expenditure on an increasing inventory.
The PSPCL in the past has maintained sufficient stock and earned profits by selling power to the grid. In a year before the Covid-19 outbreak, the state sold power worth ₹1,183 crore to the grid mostly in September and October when electricity prices remain high.
The management was already aware that a 660 megawatt (MW) unit of the Talwandi Sabo plant was operational and it had to meet coal demand of their own plants, but they didn’t maintain stock for at least 40 days, said another power engineer.
PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) A Venu Prasad admitted that the corporation is facing an acute coal shortage in all plants across the State.
“All the private plants in the state have coal stock for one-and-a-half days while the state-owned plants have about 4 days of reserves. Yesterday, 11 coal rakes were received against the requirement of 22 rakes. Due to depleted coal stock, these plants are operating at less than 50% of their generation capacity. The demand of agriculture sector is still persisting due to delayed transplantation of paddy,” he said.
The situation, he claimed, will improve after October 15 as more stock will arrive.
“About 1800 MW power was purchased from the grid at ₹11.60 per unit today. Despite that, we are going for load shedding across the state on all categories of consumers to bridge the gap between demand and supply. Power cuts lasting 2-3 hours will be imposed daily till Wednesday,” he added.
