Korba power production goes abegging

140 mw of power has been going unrequisitioned for the past 1 month

It is a piquant situation. At a time when the state is facing a massive shortage of power and the stability of power supply to Mumbai city is in question, output from NTPC's Korba thermal power plant has gone unrequisitioned for nearly a month now.

For the past one month, every day during peak load period (10 am and 7 pm), nearly 140 mw of power from the plant has gone unrequisitioned, NTPC sources said.

This, when the cost of Korba's power is cheapest in the western grid at 90 paise per unit. With wheeling and open access charges, the price of power from Korba goes up to around 110 paise. The average cost of power supplied by NTPC is around 150 paise per unit.

Korba supplies 140 mw of power to the western grid. This is almost exactly the shortfall that Mumbai faces everyday during peaking load. While Tata Power Company (TPC) generates 1,850 mw, Reliance generates 500 mw and the shortfall of 150 mw is drawn from the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB). Mumbai's peak load requirement is 2,500 mw.

Last month,MSEB filed a complaint with the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) that TPC has been overdrawing from the grid, resulting in grid instability, leading to load shedding elsewhere. In response, the MERC issued an interim order that TPC may not draw power beyond the "normal" load.

TPC, this weekend is reported to have had a 200 mw surplus given the pleasant weather in the city and reduced load during the weekend.

The state is facing a shortage close to 3,000 mw and large areas are going without power for upto six hours. Neither MSEB nor TPC officials were available for comment.

NTPC, which has been trying to sell this power elsewhere in the northern grid, has been unable to do so as the transmission lines are fully loaded.

NTPC supplies 136 million units to the western grid and has an availability of 88 per cent of its capacity. Only 76 per cent of that has been requisitioned.

Industry sources pointed out that one reason for the power utilities not drawing NTPC power could be the availability of power reserved for the agricultural sector available at zero cost. With the massive flooding in the state resulting in agricultural activities coming to a stand still, almost no power is being drawn by the agricultural sector.