Naptha-tied thermal fuel costs have eased almost one-third in six months, but the Kerala State Electricity Board?s bill on buying thermal power may not get a matching shrink. The Rs 2,548-crore bill, estimated earlier, is likely to go up by about Rs 1,100 crore, by the latest projections.
But then, KSEB, which has legally stopped to exist after breaching the unbundling deadline by the Centre, is walking an innovative power piggy bank way to bridge a gap of 11 million units per day in the next three months. This is likely to work because saving power gives about six times more cost-mileage than producing power in the current situation.
?As much as Rs 6 crore to Rs 8 crore is the current expenditure to produce 1 MW electricity. The board works out that it costs only Rs 1 crore for saving as much electrictiy,? a senior KSEB official told FE.
As the first step in this direction, the board is readying to distribute CFL bulbs worth Rs 10 crore at discounted rates to the households. The bulbs will be free for BPL population and at 50% discount to those in APL category. This is anticipated to fetch power savings to the tune of 50 MW.
The board was pushed to think up alternatives following the built-up of a difficult demand-supply pressure situation.
One, the second spell of annual monsoon has not favoured the State?s reservoirs enough to yield a bounty of hydel power at 80 paise per unit. The hydel reservoirs, which now have water enough to produce only 2,650 million units, had held enough stock to produce 3,400 million units in the corresponding period last year.
Two, Kerala?s allotment from the Central grid had been squeezed down to 700 MW from the earlier 1,041 MW.
A huge demand surge is also anticipated this year, when the consumption goes up during the school exams. That could mean a requirement of sourcing atleast 11 million units of thermal power.
Power consumption has been growing by more than 5% each year in recent times, mainly driven by the use of consumer goods in households. State power minister AK Balan claimed that it is also because Kerala is the only Southern State that has not slapped powercuts on industry. The State has been managing with clamping 30 minutes across-the-board loadshedding and 25% power cut on ET and EHT power consumers.
For KSEB, the only silver lining is that thermal power costs have fallen from Rs 12.05 per unit to below Rs 4 per unit. To make full use of this, the board now will have to hardsell its new ?save-power? mantra to the consumers.