Efforts on to tap captive power capacity

The Centre is working on a way to tap unutilised and under-utilised captive power capacity available in the country, said Power secretary, RV Shahi. About 4-5000 MW can be added to the grid by tapping these sources

"In the next six months, we should be able to get grid connectivity of 4,000-5,000 MW of energy," said Shahi while speaking at a seminar on rural electrification organised by Powerline and the power ministry.

As per the provisions of the Electricity Act, captive power producers can sell power through the power grid by paying a surcharge to the state electricity board.

In the current fiscal, the government had targeted generation of 621 billion units of electricity, as against 586 BUs in 2004-05.

The additional power would be generated by way of new capacity and also focus on improving performance of plants with low plant load factors.

Renovation and modernisation of plants, with a view to improving their PLFs to 60 per cent by the end of the fiscal would be the focus, he said adding that National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) would provide technical inputs for the exercise.

On rural electrification, Shahi said an investment of Rs 16,000 crore would be required to electrify 125,000 villages by 2009-10.

The government had already provided Rs 5,000 crore for the next two years.

Speaking on the occassion, MN Prasad, Chairman, Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) said that West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan had signed agreements with REC for implementing the household electrification scheme, while agreements were expected shortly with Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal.

One hundrd and eleven projects in 114 districts had been sanctioned in the last six months and Rs 964 crore had been disbursed to implementing agencies in the first tranche, he added.

In order to ensure timely completion with quality work, an indepent monitoring system was being put in place. In addition, the focus was on revenue sustainability and on strengthening the upstream sub-transmission system also.

The capacity of manufacturing industry and contractors to supply the equipment required for rural electrification also needed to be strengthened.

The programme would require 15 lakh km of transmisison lines, distribution transmormers of around 60,000 MVA in total and about three crore meters.