Kerala’s reservoirs flush like never before

Thiruvananthapuram: At the end of the rain year on May 31, the state reservoirs had more water than at any time in history. KSEB’s reservoirs are so healthy, and its purchase costs falling, that any kind of power curbs will seem untenable.  

On May 31, all the dams in the state had water to generate 1166 million units of power. Last year same time, when rainfall was more than generous, the dams had water to generate only 634 MU. It helped that rains were heavy in a district like Idukki where the state has the most number of dams.

A rain year is like a school academic year, it starts from June 1 and ends on May 31 next year. It is generally considered healthy if all the dams together have reserve water enough to generate 500 MU. The state’s dams have more than double, an additional 666 MU.

The state's power consumption in the last rain year was 27697 MU. More than a quarter of this, 7255 MU, was secured from low-cost hydel stations.

This was far higher than even the estimate of the Electricity Regulatory Commission, which said that only 6924 MU could be generated from the state’s hydel stations. What's more, KSEB also secured 11421 MU at low prices ranging from Rs 3-4 per unit from power exchanges and traders.

The rains were especially generous during the rain year. The estimate was that the southwest monsoon will provide the state 2039 mm of rainfall.

But in reality, it provided 2163 mm, six percent more than expectation. However, in Idukki the increase in rainfall was 10 percent from the estimate.

For northeast monsoon, the expectation was 480 mm. But the state received 502 mm, an increase of four percent. Again Idukki gained more. It experienced 431 mm of rain when the estimate was only 337 mm.

The period between August and March, when power consumption is expected to soar, too witnessed an unprecedented temperance. The expectation was 70 MU daily but as it turned out it was below 65 MU. All this had pushed down KSEB’s production costs, too.