Power Ministry advisory to over drawing states endangering grid

New Delhi, Sep 14 (UNI) Power Ministry has issued an advisory to states overdrawing power asking them to discipline themselves and not jeopardize the Grid, failing which they would face severe action.

States / Utilities have been warned that overdrawal of power beyond its availability may have extremely serious ramifications for the country as a whole.

At a meeting recently convened by Secretary, Ministry of Power, to discuss the critical condition of the integrated Northern / Eastern / Western and North-Eastern grid and the Southern Region Grid in the recent past, Mr Anil Razdan said that whenever necessary, the States must resort to suitable and prompt regulation. He said that priority must be given to public utility services and essential services if the supply is less than demand. He expressed serious concern about the outage of generating units and inability to meet higher demand.

He called upon all States generating utilities as well as the Central PSUs like NTPC and NHPC to increase generation at least by 10 per cent. Mr Razdan also suggested that states should scout around for any untapped captive power units and get them connected to the Grid and also maximize and dispatch all liquid / gas generation.

The States overdrawing power from the Grid on a regular basis include Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh when the frequency was low, below 49.0 Hertz. The main reasons for persistent overdrawal of power were noted to be higher consumption, lower generation due to insufficient rainfall, low water reservoir levels, outages, fuel shortage and delay in commissioning of units.

The Secretary (Power) emphasized that given the critical coal stock position at a large number of thermal power stations and the position of coal supply from the domestic sources, utilities need to import coal according to the target given to them, while insisting upon the coal companies to improve materialization of the contracted linkage of domestic supply. Some States reported materialization below 60 per cent.

He advised the utilities to manage the demand within the available power, failing which cuts / load shedding may be resorted to. He emphasized to refrain from overdrawal at frequencies below 49.5 Hz. in order to avoid potential grid disturbance which may have serious impact on all sectors of economy. He urged upon all the generating utilities to bring back the units under outage in a mission mode and keep them in good condition through proper operation and maintenance practices, keeping in mind the demand for forthcoming festival season.

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