Himachal Pradesh, which has a potential of generating 21,000 Mw hydropower, has been able to harness one-third of it so far. The state government plans to tap around 12,000 Mw by 2012. Although the major source of electricity remains the hydro power, power generation during the winter falls by about 30 per cent due to reduced water level in the major rivers. As a result, the hill state has to rely on power trading to tide over the deficiency.
Himachal Pradesh, which till now was gratifying its extended winter power demand through forward and backward power arrangements, has started leveraging the option of contra-banking as well.
According to Sunil Grover, director (power regulation), Himachal Pradesh, starting this year, the hill state has entered into contra-banking arrangements in addition to the existing future and backwards power banking.
“In contra-banking, the state would create advance banking of electricity units in the summer when the requirement is low and sell it to neighbouring states like Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, and in the winter the state would get back the electricity,” Grover said.
Earlier, the state used to rely on forward and backward power banking arrangements with Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. These arrangements allowed the hill state to get back the same amount of electricity it used to give to the neighboring states in the summer. The only difference was that Himachal used to first buy power in the winter and then sell in the summer.
Grover revealed that the total power requirement of Himachal Pradesh is 6,500 million units. Of this, 3,000 million units are required in the winter months. While around 2,000 million units are met by the state’s own resources, the hill state has to purchase 1,000 million units from power trading.
Out of the 1,000 million units, requirement of 270 million units would be met though contra-banking, 440 million units through forward power arrangement.
The state will receive around 300 remaining units from the Centre under its unallocated quota in winter.
Chief Minister PK Dhumal recently said that the demand for power has gone up in the recent past due to rapid industrialisation in the state.
He said that with the increase in the demand for power supply the state was finding it difficult to bridge the gap between demand and supply of power requirements, and hence, it requires its share of power from the ultra mega power projects (UMPPs).
Himachal Pradesh has raised its demand for allocating at least 400 Mw of thermal power from the country’s different UMPPs to the state on a regular basis so as to enable the state meet the power demand during winter months.
