MSEDCL to bill Tata Power at highest rate

The state-owned power utility MSEDCL's stand to bill the Tata Power Company (TPC) at highest rate at which it was buying the power to ensure that Mumbai gets uninterrupted power supply is set to trigger a new feud between TPC and MSEDCL.

The TPC has an installed capacity of around 1,774 Mw and REL has a capacity of 500 Mw and during peak hours Mumbai faces a shortage of around 200 Mw which TPC draws from the state grid and MSEDCL is bound to supply whatever power is required for Mumbai under a standby agreement it signed with TPC nearly 60 years ago.

Since the first week of January there has had been an outage at a 500 Mw unit of TPC's Trombay facility for annual maintenance and overhaul it was expected to be resynchronised in the first week of February but due to technical reasons resynchronisation got delayed and it is expected that, this 500 Mw unit will start generating power from Tuesday.

However, during these two months, MSEDCL was supplying 500 Mw of additional power to Mumbai when the state was grappling from a shortage to the tune of 5,700 Mw and it was buying expensive power even at Rs 7 per unit to meet this short-fall from wherever possible.

Now MSEDCL has taken a stand that it will charge TPC at highest rate at which it has bought for whatever extra power it has drawn from the state grid. During this period, TPC overdrew nearly 2 to 3 million units per day.

When contacted MSEDCL's managing director Ajay Bhushan Pande confirmed that MSEDCL will be sending TPC a monthly bill for the overdrawn power at the highest rate and said, "Even Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has cleared the move."

When contacted TPC spokesperson refused to comment on the issue of extra billIng by the MSEDCL. Mumbai customer pays an additional 40 paise per unit to get uninterrupted power.