Power staff opposes TS hydel power plants coming under river boards

HYDERABAD: TS Genco employees working at hydel power plants in Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and other irrigation projects, urged the state government not to hand over hydel power plants to Krishna and Godavari River Management Boards (KRMB and GRMB).

They cautioned the government against bringing staff working in hydel power plants under the jurisdiction of KRMB.

A delegation of employees met energy secretary Sunil Sharma on Friday and raised concerns over the gazette notification issued by the Centre that brings all projects on Krishna and Godavari, including hydel power plants under the jurisdiction of river boards.

Telangana Electricity Engineers' Association president N. Sivaji said that the gazette notification has demeaned sacrifices and struggles of the people of Telangana for decades together.

"We fought for statehood to ensure our control on our projects and safeguard interests of the people of the region. Handing over our hydel power projects to the Centre is unthinkable. Pumped storage projects at irrigation projects can provide adequate peaking reserves, support variable renewable energy sources and provide large grid storage and long discharge time," Sivaji said.

For safe and secure grid operation, the hydel stations should be under the operational control of TS Genco, he added.

"About 3,617 MW of renewable generation is tied up by TS discoms as on date, which accounts for 22 per cent of total generation mix but varies on real-time up to 47 per cent when compared to planning. Thus the demand and generation mix in Telangana is specific in nature. With this variation, load generation balance is a challenging job, and it needs flexible resources on call on real-time basis," Sivaji said.