Electricity supply situation worsens in Maharashtra, minister says power cuts inevitable

Raut said that this year, the heat began increasing from February instead of April and this, with the resumption of economic activity due to the removal of Covid restrictions, had pushed up demand

Mumbai: In what has added to the woes of power-deficit Maharashtra, a shortfall in supply by private power producers has led to the state electricity distribution utility restarting load-shedding to overcome the gap between demand and supply. Energy minister Nitin Raut, who met chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday, admitted that power cuts were inevitable and blamed the union government for disruptions in the supply of coal which is seen as one of the reasons for the significant demand-supply gap in electricity.

Electricity supply situation worsens in Maharashtra, minister says power cuts inevitable

The growth in electricity demand due to the soaring heat, rise in consumption by industrial and agricultural consumers and the nationwide coal crisis has affected coal inventories at state-owned Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited’s (MahaGenco) thermal power stations.

Raut said that this year, the heat began increasing from February instead of April and this, with the resumption of economic activity due to the removal of Covid restrictions, had pushed up demand. Unseasonal rains in September had led to waterlogging in coal mines and the coal ministry had pointed to how the Railways were not giving them wagons for dispatching coal to thermal plants.

“The poor planning of the union government has led to this power crisis,” alleged Raut after a meeting called by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to discuss the current power supply situation in the state.

“Earlier, I had said that we will not allow any load shedding in Maharashtra, but suddenly the Adani power company had reduced power generation at their Tiroda plant. We have a PPA (power purchase agreement) for the supply of 3,100 MW, but we were given a supply of 1,765 MW, and we had a shortfall of 1,405 MW. Similarly, we used to get 100 MW from JSW, but this was disrupted, as their plant was shut down. From CGPL (Coastal Gujarat Power Limited or CGPL Mundra), we have an agreement and we had registered demand of 760 MW according to it, but they gave us just 630 MW. This led to a backlog of 130 MW. Due to this, there was a shortage, and we had to resort to load shedding in the state,” he said.

Raut added that it cannot be said for how long this load shedding will continue as no power is available in the open market and many power plants were lying idle due to a lack of coal. The load-shedding will be undertaken in areas where recovery of bills is less and losses are high.

A senior official from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) said that the private power producers were facing coal supply shortages and outages at their plants. “On an average, the annual demand for electricity rises by 600 to 800 MW, but this year, it is at a much higher 2,600 to 2,700 MW… leading to an average shortfall of 2,600 MW,” he explained.

The MahaGenco has a 13,902 MW capacity, including 9,750 MW in coal-based thermal power, 2,580 MW in hydro power, 672 MW gas, and 207 MW in solar energy. It needs around 1,38,710 metric ton (MT) coal every day to run its generating stations at optimum capacity (around 85% plant load factor). It gets a bulk of its coal supply (60%) from the Western Coalfields Limited (WCL) followed by the South Eastern Coalfields (SECL) and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL).

A senior MSEDCL official present at the meeting with Thackeray, said that CGPL had agreed to overcome the 130 MW shortfall in the next 72 hours.

Raut said that instead of the daily 36 wagons containing around 4,000 MT coal, the supplies had dwindled to just around 19 to 26 wagons, leading to a shortage.

Meanwhile, Adani Power Company’s reaction to Raut’s allegations was awaited.

The MSEDCL has ₹64,093 crore worth arrears from all categories of consumers like residential ( ₹2,304 crore), commercial ( ₹492 crore), industrial ( ₹2,845 crore) and agricultural ( ₹40,247 crore). This also includes ₹9,176 crore that are due from government departments like rural development, urban development and government offices.