UP power situation likely to ease; extra 2,000 MW arranged

The decision to transport coal by road comes in the backdrop of the difficulties being faced in transporting the fuel by rail.

Uttar Pradesh is likely to see a slight let-up in its power crisis from Sunday. The Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation (UPPCL), the umbrella body of all the state discoms, has made arrangements for additional 2,000-megawatt (MW) electricity from different sources to tide over the demand-supply gap.

According to UPPCL chairman M Devraj, apart from mobilising 400 MW of hydro power from Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, the state would be getting around 325 MW power from MP and another 300 MW from Rajasthan on a banking basis.

“We would also start getting 660 MW from Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam unit in Harduaganj thermal plant that had been closed for some time due to technical reasons,” he added, adding that besides this, an additional 430-950 MW would be arranged through e-bidding. Apart from this, the corporation is also making arrangements to start transporting 1 million mt of of coal for its thermal plants by road over the next few months. The decision to transport coal by road comes in the backdrop of the difficulties being faced in transporting the fuel by rail.

UP’s thermal power plants, with a generation capacity of 6,100 MW, need around 88,000 tonne of coal per day to run at 85% plant load factor (PLF).

However, since the supply of coal has been badly hit, the coal inventories have fallen sharply. According to the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) daily coal report, the state thermal plants had been left with 17% coal reserves on April 28, against the mandated 25%. Among them, coal stocks in three plants were in a critical stage, with Harduaganj having 14% stock, Obra 13% and Parichha plant having merely 4%.

However, officials of UP’s energy department, though worried over the low coal stocks, feel that the situation is not out of control, especially because fresh coal supply is being replenished daily. “It’s not like the plants will be closed down once the coal gets exhausted in a few days. We are trying to get the coal supply on track. The only issue is that in view of the shortage of rail wagons, plants are not being able to maintain the coal stocks as per the norms decided by the Central Electricity Authority,” said an official, adding that efforts are being made to continue giving the state headquarters and bigger towns uninterrupted power, even though the villages are facing load shedding of about 10 hours, and semi-urban and small towns are having 6-7 hours of power cuts every day.

“We are making all efforts to bridge the current demand-supply gap and with these efforts, we are certain to bring the situation under control to a large extent,” he said.

On Saturday, the peak power demand in the state was recorded to be around 23,000 MW against the total availability of nearly 19,366 MW, which includes 8,500 MW received from the central sector, 6,200 MW from independent private producers within the state, 4,300 MW from state utilities (Uttar Pradesh Utpadan Nigam), and 366 MW from UP hydro power utilities.