Monsoon cheer eludes Kerala State Electricity Board

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is not good news for KSEB Limited that the enthusiasm of southwest monsoon has waned. The public utility has no choice, but to drop its two-month long experiment of keeping hydel generation at the lowest possible level. From now on, even though the water level is dangerously low, the public utility will scale up hydel generation to a considerable degree. The hope is the monsoon will pick up. But the danger is reservoirs will be soon emptied out if the monsoon misbehaves.

If the monsoon mimics its last year's performance, KSEBL will have to depend on costly purchases for nearly half its daily requirements pushing up its power purchase cost like never before. All this while, even during the first 10 days of the monsoon, KSEBL had been careful not to overwork its hydel stations. “The water level in our reservoirs was very low by early May itself, it had come down to below 10 per cent. Even after the monsoon arrived, the level had risen only marginally to 12 per cent,” a top KSEBL official said. “So we had kept hydel generation below five million units daily. But this cannot be sustained for long as less hydel power means more costly purchases from outside," the official added.

On June 16, for instance, hydel generation was nearly 17 MU; till four days ago, it was less than 10 MU, and during May less than 5 MU. "We have cranked up hydel generation, but the inflow just about 30 per cent of the outgo," the official said. While the outflow on June 16 was 17 MU, the inflow was only 5 MU. The Meteorological Department has recorded a 20 per cent departure from what is the norm. In Idukki, where the state has its largest dam, the rainfall deficiency is an alarming 40 per cent. The dam has water to generate just 230 MU. However, last year same time, when the monsoon was even weaker, it had water to generate 448 MU. Daily consumption, that had dropped to nearly 60 million units during the initial days of the monsoon, has surged to 68 MU.