Coal crunch to plunge Andhra Pradesh into darkness

Amaravati: The State is facing a "touch and go" affair regarding the fuel gap for power generation.

The situation continues to be precarious and according to Union Minister for Power R K Singh with less than three days of stock you can't be secure.

The coal reserves at the Vijayawada Thermal Power Station on Thursday was reported to be at 15,000 metric tonnes. This is just sufficient for half-a-day power generation. If the same situation continues further, the thermal plant will be forced to shut down some of the power generating units.

Officials are struggling hard to continue power generation with the available meagre coal reserves. The thermal power stations, including VTPS, Rayalaseema Thermal Power plant and Krishnapanam Thermal power station have stopped power generation and the some units have been shut down due to the shortage of coal.

All the three thermal power generation plants need around 80,000 MT of coal per day. VTPS consumes 30,000 MT, RTPS 29,000 MT and KTPS around 20,000 MT per day. At present the Vijayawada Thermal plant is getting coal from Singareni collieries and Talcher plant.

Along with the coal shortage, another reason for shut down of the thermal power plants is the failure of Discoms to clear the dues to AP Genco. As on date, Discoms have to clear dues of Rs 3,500 crore. The Discoms are giving priority to clear the dues of private players neglecting AP Genco. With no money in hand the AP Genco is unable to purchase coal from the coal suppliers, which is also going to affect the power generation in a big way.

When the power generation in the State is facing severe crisis with shortage of coal and mounting dues from Discoms, the demand for power has been increasing. Power consumption in Andhra Pradesh has increased by 20 per cent as against national average of 18.6 per cent.

The power generation on October 5 stands at 77.72 million units, including thermal-39.664 million units, hydel-23.753 million units, APPDC-12.348 million units and non-conventional energy-1.959 million units.

However, the increase in hydel power generation due to continuous rainfall helped to come over the present crisis to some extent but unless the coal situation improves, the State may have to face power outages.