THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, through a Facebook post on Monday, said that the soaring power consumption in the state this summer had created such a crisis that power cut or load-shedding was the only way out. However, a close look at facts could provoke the suspicion that the Chief Minister was attempting to prepare the ground for a power tariff hike. Contrary to Mr Vijayan’s claim, the state’s daily power consumption has fallen, not marginally but considerably. What’s more, KSEB Limited’s other compelling argument for a tariff hike (that transmission constraints was pushing up purchase costs) too has been neutralised.
According to KSEBL’s estimate in 2013-14, based on a 7 per cent annual growth, the state’s consumption should have swelled to 26,530 million units in 2016-17. As it turned out, the consumption was only 23,818 MU, which is 11 per cent lower than the estimate and only marginally higher than the consumption in 2014-15 (23,173 MU). 2016-17 might have seen the worst rainfall and highest temperatures but it has surprisingly not resulted in higher consumption. If the average daily consumption during March 2016 was 72.72, it was only 70.09 MU this ‘drought year’ March. “Since consumers rise every year, it is usual for consumption to show a spike every passing year. But this summer seems to have turned things upside down,” a top KSEBL official said.
The transmission bottleneck that had prevented the flow of cost-effective power from traders outside the state, too, has been removed. A third transformer of 315 MVA (mega volt amp) capacity had become operational at Areekode Substation in Malappuram from March 7, allowing the state to import its full quota of 2900 MW from traders across the country. Till then, the state could import a maximum of only 2500 MW (the state’s peak demand is 3171 MW). Then, KSEBL had argued that it had to buy costly power from outside. Though this argument is no more valid, it has not prevented the Chief Minister (in his FB post) to claim that the state did not have adequate transmission lines.
