India needs 8 per cent growth in Power sector during 11th Plan

Bhubaneswar, Jan 23 (UNI) A seven to eight per cent growth in power sector is required to achieve targetted growth of 9.2 per cent in GDP during the 11th five year plan, Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) Director General A K Tripathy said.

India, Mr Tripathy said, would fail in the industry, agriculture and service sector if the desired growth rate in the power sector was not achieved. He was addressing a seminar on''Factor Endowment in Power Transmission sector to meet Future Challenges'' organised by the GRIDCO Power Engineers Association, Bhubaneswar.

He said by 2012 the per capita consumption of power would be 1,000 units and the country planned to generate 78,000MW of additional power in next five years to meet the demand.

The CPRI Director General said till 1990 the country generated 63,636 MW of power and the per capita consumption was 348 units. In 2008 the country generated 1,38,000 MW and the per capita consumption was 650MW.

While 39,865 MW would be generated under the central sector, 27,952 would be generated under the state sector and the rest 10,760 MW by the private sector.

Mr Tripathy said a number of policy measures for reforms in power sector had been taken to sustain the accelerated growth. The energy resources in the country could not support the growth unless alternate sources were exploited, efficiency of existing plants improved, available energy was conserved and new technology introduced.

He said India has a large sea line and the country had the potential to provide electricity to villages through renewable sources which would reduce burden on transmission and distribution.

He said the country was facing a peak power shortage of 14 per cent and energy shortage of 11 per cent even five years after the Electricity Act 2003 was passed.

Mr Tripathy said a lot of things could be managed through load management, taking advantage of renewable energy and incentives to use less power at peak power conditions.

The Director General said India should have an Independent Transmission Operators in addition to Independent system operators, involve IT sector in a big way to help the transmission sector more reliable.

GRIDCO CMD C J Venugopal appealed to the technocrats to evolve a very effective evacuation system for the power transmission.

Energy Secretary U P Singh said the scenario in the power sector was changing fast and appealed to the engineers to keep abreast of the latest in regulatory, technology and legal front to get the best out of it.

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