Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) – suffering a 500 mw per day peak hour deficit – has decided to dip 100 mw from the Central pool, despite its price hitting Rs 10 per unit. This would spare the industrial consumers from the Board’s earlier option of clamping place-specific load-shedding in peak hours.
High Tension and Extra High Tension (HT&EHT) consumers have already been sought to resort to own generators in the peak hours. As much as 125 mw has been saved through this route, a senior KSEB official told FE.
Only 1.46% of KSEB’s consumers are in the industrial category. As much as 78.8% are domestic consumers, 14.4% commercial consumers and 5.16% agricultural consumers.
The purchase of extra 100 mw from Central grid through NTPC Kayamkulam is expected to bring some repreive in the crisis situation. Instead of its usual 1,050 mw from Central grid, Kerala had been getting only 724 mw from Central grid last week, due to various production bottlenecks in Ramagundam, Talcher and Neyveli power stations.
Tuesday’s power purchase, sourced from Punjab Electricity Board, factoring in expenses like wheeling charges- is at a rate which is nearly 10 times the unit production cost of hydel power within Kerala.
The immediate trigger was the 266 mw per day shortage in state’s own generation after the blast at KSEB’s Moozhiyar power station last week. In Dominoes effect, small hydro projects like Kakkad and Maniyar, geared to the Moozhiyar station, are forced to idle.
State needs 2700 mw per day. It has 2528 mw per day available, with 1851 mw per day drawn from its hydro power projects.
Besides speeding up the Moozhiyar repairs, KSEB is eyeing the westerlies blowing on Sri Lankan coast. IMD had identified a run-up to an early advent of South West Monsoon at its routine entry point through Kerala. If this is true, KSEB bosses would be able to step the throttle on cheap hydel power, happily logging off the ten-fold priced power from Central grid.