While the long-gestation thermal projects have got bogged down in one reason or another, the short-gestation projects, planned for commissioning in 18 months, have failed to take off.
The state faces a grim power situation in the next two or three years. The governments commitment to add 2,000 mw by December 1996 has already gone haywire. We may be able to add only 250 mw next year, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu told the Press the other day.
The good monsoon this year staved off an immediate power crisis. The situation next year too will depend largely on the rain gods.
The Telugu Desam Party politicised the Krishnapatnam scheme (two thermal power stations of 500 mw each) and delayed its clearance when the Congress was in power. Now the opposition Congress has thrown a spanner in the works of the 500 mw Ramagundam project awarded to BPL.
The Ramagundam Project has now been put on hold, along with the Krishnapatnam projects.
The state electricity board was to sign the revised power purchase agreement with BPL last week and send it to the Central Electricity Authority for final clearance.
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But the Congress put its foot down, charging that Naidu had received kick-backs from BPL. The Chief Minister announced that he was putting the project on hold.
When N T Rama Rao came to power, he signed memorandums of understanding with private operators for 23 projects aimed at adding 11,200 mw to the state grid. Naidus first action after wresting power from his father-in-law was to scrap all those MoUs.
Naidu says the prospects of the 1,040-mw thermal plant at Visakhapatnam by the Hindujas are not bright.
The Hindujas want washed coal for the project, but the coalfields to which the project is linked maintain that they have neither the funds nor the technology to set up a washery. Naidu suggested imported coal, but this was struck down by the Centre.
Two projects are being put up by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), one at Hyderabad (naphtha-based 650 mw) and the other at Visakhapatnam (Simhadri 1,000 mw, thermal).
But the Hyderabad project has got bogged down in a move to shift it to the coastal area Kakinada. This move is seen as a step to punish the Telangana region.
Only two private gas-based power projects, one at Jegurupadu near Rajahmundry and the other at Kakinada, seem to be coming up well.
Two gas turbines generating 90 mw at Jegurupadu have already been synchronised to the grid, while the first gas turbine of 40 mw of the Kakinada plant is due for commissioning later this month. When fully commissioned in six to eight months, the two will add 450 mw to the grid.
The demand and supply gap in the state now is over 2,000 mw.
A new 250-mw station being put up in the state sector at Kothagudem is also due for commissioning in two to three months.
No other new project is likely to be commissioned next year, Naidu admits.
Only 453 mw has been added since Naidu came to power: 210 mw from the commissioning of the second unit under the Rayalaseema thermal power project, 100 mw by improving the plant load factor of existing thermal plants, 20 mw by expanding the gas turbine at Vijjeswaram, 33 mw by increasing the output of wind power stations and 90 mw from the GVK Ltd private operation at Jegurupadu.
Naidu based his promise of 2,000 mw additional power largely on the assumption that several short-gestation and mini-power projects he had cleared will be commissioned. He had cleared 27 mini-power projects with a combined installed capacity of 850 mw, besides 40 mini-hydel projects.
But most of the mini plants were naphtha-based and failed to take off since the Centre decided not to allow naphtha as a fuel for power generation.
Not a single mini-power project has been set up because of the erratic policy of the Centre.
Even among the mini-hydel projects, only one a 3.75-mw plant at Guntur branch canal has been commissioned, Naidu said.