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Uttar Pradesh power crisis set to ease from tomorrow
UPPCL, which has made arrangements for acquiring additional electricity from various sources to bridge the demand-supply gap, may be able to ease the severe power crisis from May 1, energy department officials said.
The severe power crisis in Uttar Pradesh may start easing from May 1 with the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) having made arrangements for purchase of additional electricity from different sources to bridge the demand-supply gap, energy department officials said.
They also said the power deficit in UP was still only less than 8% compared 20% in Jharkhand, 16.9% in Rajasthan, 16.9% in Haryana, 16.7% in Punjab and 9.3% in Bihar.
“Moreover, despite all the odds we are making no emergency load shedding in district headquarters and ‘bigger towns’ that all continue to get power supply for 24 hours, unless some local faults occur,” they said. “We expect the situation to be better from Sunday onwards,” they claimed.
The peak restricted power demand in the state is being recorded to be more than 21,000 MW against the total availability of nearly 19,000 MW, which includes 8,000 MW received from the central sector, 5,500 MW available from independent private producers within the state, 500 MW from co-generation and 600 MW hydro power.
Though the district headquarters and ‘bigger cities’ as well as industries with independent feeders are still being exempted from load shedding, villages are facing load shedding of about 10 hours and semi-urban and small towns to the extent of 6-7 hours a day.
The state’s thermal plants are said to have been left with coal reserves that may last only for less than a week but this does not mean they will be left with no coal after a week since fresh coal supply keeps coming daily. Only thing is that plants are not able to maintain the coal stocks as per the norms decided by the Central Electricity Authority of India (CEA).
Acknowledging the deep power crisis in the state, energy ministry Arvind Kumar Sharma on Friday appealed to the people to save on electricity in view of the shortage.
“The power demand is up due to the heat wave. On the other hand, several power generating equipments have been down for weeks due to technical reasons. In this situation, all should try to save electricity. Our power personnel are working hard 24x7 to ensure uninterrupted supply,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.
UPPCL chairman M Devraj also said that all possible attempts were being made to bring the power supply back on the track. “We expect the power crisis to ease in a day or two as we will start getting more power from different sources from May 1,” he said.
He said UP would start getting 300 MW power from MP and 350 MW from Rajasthan on banking basis, besides 400 MW hydro power from another source from May 1.
“Also, our 660 MW Harduaganj thermal plant that had been closed for some time due to technical reasons is expected to start production by Saturday,” he added. He said efforts were also being made to bring more coal to plants by road in view of shortage of coal rakes.
All this, he said, might be able to bridge the current demand-supply gap to a large extent and the situation, he claimed, was likely start getting easier from May 1. He also said that UP had cleared all its arrears to coal companies, barring for the recent period of 15 days or so.
After UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad chairman Avadhesh Kumar Verma raised the issue, Devraj had written a letter to the union power ministry urging it to ensure that energy exchange did not sell power above the price capped by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).
Verma demanded the centre should make a law banning the energy exchange to sell power to states at the price more than ₹6 per unit.
Meanwhile, the All-India Power Engineers’ Federation (AIPEF) alleged that a lack of coordination among ministers for coal, power and railways was primarily responsible for the coal shortage, resulting in power crisis in the country.
