Despite late rain, India aims 8.9% more hydel power

India has set a generation target for hydel projects 8.9% higher in the current financial year despite the widespread fear that delayed arrival of monsoon could lead to a drastic decline in reservoir levels of rivers and hurt hydrogeneration.

The Union power ministry has targeted to produce 122 billion units of electricity from hydropower plants in the current year. In comparison, the target for 2011-12 was 112 billion units and the actual generation was 130 billion units.

Hydropower plants generated less power during the first quarter on the decline in reservoir levels of river due to delay in arrival of Monsoon. As a result, actual generation from hydro plants in the first quarter was just 98.45% of the target envisaged for the period.

Despite below-than-expected performance of hydropower plants during the April-June 2012 quarter, overall generation in the country was 8.5 billion units higher than the target.

?What matters is overall generation which is robust,? said Union power secretary P Uma Shankar.

He was, however, hopeful that monsoon would arrive soon, which would help hydro plants make up for the reported generation loss during the April-June 2012 quarter. Even if the plants fail to meet generation target, overall power availability in the country was unlikely to be affected given the share of hydropower in the country?s electricity mix is just 19.5%.

The robust generation performance of nuclear and coal-based plants more than offset the generation at hydropower plants during the April-June 2012 quarter. Despite the reported shortfall in generation from hydropower plants during the latest quarter, the overall generation was 6.43% higher from a year ago.

The generation from thermal plants was 9.35% higher compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. Nuclear generating stations produced 6.31% more electricity from a year ago.

The overall plant load factor of nuclear plants improved to 80.36% during the April-June 2012 quarter from 75.60% a year ago. Despite lower PLF, thermal plants generated more electricity on higher capacity.