Telangana aims for stable power supply this year

Telangana being a power intensive state with per capita power consumption of1394 units against the national average of 1010 units (2014-15), the state is drawing up frenetic plans to augment its production capacity through progressive steps across the value chain of fuel-generation-transmission-distribution cycle to meet the various needs of industries and consumers.

However, the state has to contend with growing power deficit which is expected to touch 40,472 MU (million units) in 2018-19 with the requirement at 84,496 MU as against the supply from existing sources at only 43,754 MU. The urban development in Hyderabad and phased urbanisation in other towns of Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Warangal would need exponential power in the coming years.

Moreover, some of the big-ticket projects such as metro rail, Hyderabad IT Investment Region (ITIR), Hyderabad-Nagpur industrial corridor and lift irrigation schemes would boost the demand for steady power. In view of the large increase in power consumption and huge demand in Greater Hyderabad, the Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSSPDCL) is taking augment measures to create the required infrastructure with an investment of Rs 240 crore.

TSSPDCL is making all efforts to provide reliable uninterrupted power to consumers in the state throughout this year too. Towards this end, the distribution system is being strengthened by charging new 33/11 KV sub-stations, enhancing the capacities of transformers and erecting more distribution transformers with an expenditure of Rs 240 crore in this financial year.

Besides, to the meet the rising demand during summer, power will be procured from producers in competitive bidding, and also ink pact the 1,000-MW deal from Chattisgarh, which was part of the state’s plans to be power surplus by 2018-19 with 24,000 MW capacity addition.

The State is gearing machinery to provide uninterrupted power supply in the upcoming summer, mandatory maintenance work was undertaken on 1,171 feeders from February 15 to 28 with a minimal outage of one hour and 38 minutes per maintenance work.

The latest statistics reveals that in the capital, power consumption per day, as of March 2, increased to 46.38 million units from 38.06 MU as on March 2 last year, an increase of around 22 pc. The maximum demand increased to 2,240 MW as on March 2 from 2,086 MW as on March 2, 2015. This increase in demand and consumption is due to the revival of sick industries for stable and uninterrupted power supply being provided by TSSPDCL.

The Government is making arrangements to provide a daytime power supply for nine hours to agriculture; TSSPDCL is spending Rs 680 crore on erecting 344 additional PTRs, enhancing the capacity of 328 existing PTRs to make a total capacity addition of 2,631 MVA. Further, bifurcation and lying of interlinking 33 KV lines of 1,990 km will be taken up.

Further, to create the necessary infrastructure to handle 104.05 MW of additional power required for “Mission Bhagreeta” project and planned to spend Rs.48.91 crores by TSSPDCL, with this investment, necessary power lines and bay extensions are being taken up at various voltage levels also.

Before bifurcation, Telangana State was branded as power deficit State and there was huge load relief extended up to four to eight hours to domestic consumers and in villages was up to 12 hours daytime and a day of power holiday to industries were given during 2013-14 and it was implemented to till the first half of 2014-15.

During 2015-16 (until January) there was no load relief due to the pro-active steps taken by TSSPDCL in power purchase as well as infrastructure developments in the State. Besides this, the estimated solar potential in Telangana is 20.41 GW and the government is keen to promote renewable power in the state with an emphasis on solar plants at select locations.

The solar rooftop net metering system is being encouraged to reduce the pressure on grid supply with a subsidy from the Centre. It was decided to extend 30% subsidy in the domestic sector for 1 KW of a grid system for 4,200 numbers in addition to the Centre’s subsidy.

Telangana is also planning to add 2,000 MW wind energy in the next three years to promote Renewable Energy sources of generation and to meet the 10% of the total energy requirement of the State of these resources by 2020 and has proposed to offer a set of incentives to developers, including 100% tax refund for inputs and stamp duty for land purchased.

Moreover, recently Telangana joined Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojna (UDAY) scheme, is designed to aid ailing electricity distribution companies (discoms) has a better chance of succeeding than the previous financial restricting plan that did not do much change the health of discoms, this will enable discoms to procure more power from other States.

G.Rajendera Kumar