South electricity board pact to simplify power sale

Hyderabad: In a major development, electricity boards of southern states on Monday reached an agreement to simplify procedures to purchase power from surplus states and constituted a committee to prepare guidelines.

They also decided to cooperate with one another in power generation, distribution and supply, at a meeting of the Southern Region Power Committee at Vidyut Soudha here.

At present, states that want to sell surplus power and those that want to purchase it have to do their transactions through the power exchange. 

The information should be given a day in advance. Under this arrangement the surplus state cannot automatically sell the excess power in the open market immediately. 

The state which is in dire need cannot purchase its requirement immediately, and has to evaluate demand a day in advance.

In the proposed agreement, the southern states will enter into mutual agreements and transact power through the Southern Region Load Dispatch Centre. 

Committee chairman D. Prabhakar Rao, chairman and managing director of Transco, said the process would be completed in an hour and the process would be online.

The surplus and shortage details will be exchanged online and the Indian Energy Exchange rates will apply. 

Southern states will sign agreements without going through the tedious process of signing power purchase agreements frequently. 

The member states of the Southern Region Power Committee accepted the initial draft and a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Mr S.R. Bhatt, member-secretary to prepare the final draft. The states will meet in Kerala on August 20 to take a final decision.