Telangana hydel power hits record 2716 MW

Hyderabad: Monsoon activity throughout this kharif season in not just Telangana but other states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka, has meant surplus power compared to the situation at the same time last year. Telangana Transco chairman and managing director Devulapally Prabhakar Rao said that the demand in terms of peak and energy in the state upto October 19 was 8532 MW; it was 10,600 MW during the same period last year.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr Rao said that in the month of September, too, the peak demand and energy reduced by 10% and 17% respectively. He said that this is mainly on account of persistent rainfall in the state, which has led to less power being required by the farming sector.

Usually, during the kharif season, agriculture accounts for 45% of the total power demand in the state, Mr Rao said. The rainfall has also kept temperatures down and thus the demand for power from other categories of consumers is also down.

He said in Telangana and in the entire southern region generally, the peak Kharif demand is normally under critical power situation, but this year due to the persistent and rigorous monsoon the power scenario in the state and region has changed to surplus the demand for power peaks during the kharif season. However, this year the unrelenting and heavy rains have led to a much improved power scenario in the state.

Mr Rao said inflows to the Krishna Basin are at a historical high - 1345 TMC as of now. He said in Telangana state, the major hydel power stations are in the Krishna Basin and to utilise maximum hydel generation, all hydel power stations are continuously kept in service.

He said that this year about 2716 MU of power was generated from hydel-generating stations; last year in the same period, 1364 MU of hydel power was generated.

Mr Rao said that to maintain economic load generation balance and grid security, all possible steps were taken to utilise the maximum hydel generation by reducing conventional generation at central, state and private power projects.

In addition to running the thermal units at technical minimum, some of the units are kept under reserve shut down, power is not being scheduled from short-term contracts, sale of power in the exchange and even backing down of renewable sources during some days.

The lower than usual demand for power from agriculture, high hydel generation, and non-materialisation of lift irrigation loads this year are unexpected, resulting in backing down of thermal stations and payment of fixed cost to generators.