The inability of the state’s largest power distributor, West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company (WBSEDCL), to find space for the installation of transmission towers around Kolkata could adversely affect power consumers in the coming year.
Although WBSEDCL has spent about Rs 300 crore to set up five sub-stations at Rajarhat, Sodepur, Subhasgram, Singur and Kolkata West International City, it is unable to operationalise these as the transmission lines for servicing the facilities haven’t been installed yet. The reason for this is the unavailability of the 250 sq meter plots required for setting up each transmission tower.
Since the existing transmission lines are of a certain capacity, even if additional power is available, it cannot be transferred through the available infrastructure. Consequently, when Kolkata’s consumption will peak in the summer, WBSEDCL will not be able to help the CESC.
“Presently, we have to lower the voltage of the electricity being transferred in order to serve a larger area. We can only reduce voltage to a certain extent. Unless we are able to get the transmission towers for the five sub-stations, there could be forced load-shedding during the summer,” WBSEDCL Chairman & Managing Director Malay De said today on the sidelines of a CII exposition.
While Kolkata’s average daily power consumption is pegged at 1500MW, CESC procures between 500-600MW from the WBSEDCL to meet the shortfall during the summer. However, if the average increase of consumption is factored in, the city could be short of about 50-100 MW during the coming summer, according to De. “There could be an impact in the summer. We are facing a similar problem of transmission for getting power from Budge Budge to our Eastern Metropolitan sub-station,” CESC Executive Director (Distribution) SS Sinha said.