Parts of Mumbai may breathe easy

POWER SITUATION IN COMMERCIAL CAPITAL

Parts of Mumbai have reason to breathe easy as Tata Power Company Ltd today said they have managed to procure an extra 50 megawatt of power from captive power plants located in various parts of the country.

According to TPC officials, the company is in talks with power generators all over the country to buy additional power. However, the company declined to comment on the rate at which this additional power is being bought, till the same is cleared by regulators.

"The problem has now moved beyond the amount of power to be procured. From where power is to be procured is the problem now. Earlier we would get power from Gujarat. However, now those options are also not available. Typically, power supply is diverted from rural to urban centres during a crisis situation. However, with rapid urbanisation and industrialisation across the nation, the situation is grave now," said a TPC spokesperson.

However, the second power distribution utility in the city, Reliance Energy Limited (REL) indicated that in case the remaining shortfall of 150 MW was not covered, areas under REL distribution stood a chance of facing power cuts this summer.

REL indicated that since power distributors cannot exceed their profit margin by 16 per cent, any additional cost incurred during power procurement would eventually be passed on to the end consumer.

According to figures issued by REL, to shed a load of 21 MW, a 30 minute rotation period would affect 25,000 customers. In case of a system abnormality, the load shedded would be 35 MW and would affect 47,000 customers for rotations of 30 minutes everyday.

The current power available for the city of Mumbai is 2,277 MW, without even a megawatt having been added over the last one decade. Demand, on the other hand has been rising steadily.

From 2,405 MW in 2005-06, demand had already risen to 2,509 MW in 2006-07. The increase in the gap between demand and supply has grown by 81.25 per cent during this period, according to data provided by REL.

By the end of 2007-08, the power shortage is expected to go up to 433 MW, increasing the demand supply gap by a further 86.63 per cent over that of 2006-07. Power shortfall in 2008-09 is expected to be nearly 550 MW by 2008-09.

The distribution of power in Mumbai is shared by three power utilities - Tata Power, Reliance Energy and Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST).

Mumbai was initially faced with a shortfall of 400 MW this summer. However, TPC has managed to procure 260 MW and is scouting for the remaining 140 MW.

The poor infrastructure of power transmission is also being brought under the scanner. The two 220 kilo-volt Kalwa - Salsette and Borivli - Salsette transmission lines are not strong enough to transmit additional power to TPC or REL areas in case of an outage.

While TPC would be adding two 250 MW units to its generation station at Trombay, the development of 2400 MW in Shahapur has been affected by the controversial allotment of same property to both REL and TPC for power projects.

REL was to have added 4,000 MW at Shahpur by 2005-06. However, the project has been delayed indefinitely.

The future of the power situation in Mumbai, thus, is still unsure. With a steady increase in demand and the gap between availability and demand, supply has been flat for the last ten years and controversies and delays in issuing clearances would only aggravate the delicate situation.

Till now, the city of Mumbai has not suffered the brunt of an acute power shortage that the rest of the state has had to face.

However, it might soon bear the brunt of the situation and pay dearly for a commodity becoming scarcer by the day.