Hydropower generation touches 50 pc of capacity

Hyderabad: Hydropower generation by the Telangana State Generation Corporation (TS Genco) has reached 29 MUs on Wednesday, 50 per cent of the hydro power generation capacity. This has come as a big relief to the power distribution companies (Discoms) which have been depending much on purchase of power from the electricity exchange. The Discoms have also been benefitted with the copious rains in the State as the demand for power has dropped drastically.

The hydropower generation has picked up as the Srisailam reservoir, which is a hydropower generator with 900 MW installed capacity, has been receiving continuous inflows for the past few days. The inflows into the dam are 1.14 lakh cusecs and the hydropower station authorities are making use of the water flow to generate power.

As the Srisailam reservoir reached the full reservoir level, 885 ft, two gates have been opened up to 10 feet to release water into the downstream Nagarjunasagar, which is another hydropower generator. The Srisailam reservoir has a storage which would help to produce 1,000 MUs. The officials have been producing about 20 MUs everyday here, for the past few days. Along with Srisailam hydropower is also generated at Jurala multipurpose project.

The consumption of power in the state is about 145 MUs per day for last one month. The demand is about 6,800 MW and hydro stations are able to generate 1000 MW, meeting nearly 20 per cent of the total demand. Total power generation capacity of the Genco has gone up to 79 MUs per day, both in hydro and thermal sectors, nearly 50 per cent of the demand. This has brought down the need to buy power from the exchanges as it has been oscillating between 1 to 100 MW per day.

Ever since the round-the-clock power to the farm sector in three districts has been launched, the Discoms have come under heavy pressure. The demand has gone up 195 MUs per day and the peak demand was 9,600 MW per day. The Discoms purchased about 2,500 MW per day during the summer season.

There was no power generation at the hydro stations since November last with no water in the reservoirs and about 2300 MW capacity of hydro generation has been kept idle. The availability of hydro power has brought down the financial pressure on the Discoms as the cost of the power in the exchanges is at Rs 4.50 per unit. The hydro power is available at a cost of Rs 1.20 which is much cheaper than thermal and other power sources.