As the mercury soared this week, Delhi’s power consumption touched an all-time high. All of this is dirty, derived from coal — a dangerous obsession which is hurtling the capital of India to certain doom
On Friday June 7, it was reported that the demand for power passed the previous record set in July last year to touch 5,653 MW. There was almost a sense of self-congratulation in the tenor of the Delhi Power Minister Haroon Yusuf, who announced that a “new record” has been set.
However, even as the minister was gloating over statistics whose ramifications he barely understood, the sobering news came that the demand overflow had taken the capital to the brink of another power collapse. Memories of July 29, 2012 when the entire Northern Grid had gone dead for more than 24 hours still rankled and so the power department’s officials began running around like the headless chicken. The increasing power outage forced Delhiites to realise once again how unsustainable was their hedonistic way of life.
If divinity had not intervened, the capital of India would once again have been reduced to ridicule. Unseasonal and quite unanticipated, a thundershower intervened, taking the temperature down by almost 15 degrees within an hour. So, off went the air-conditioners and the power demand plunged from 5,642 MW at 3.38 pm to 2,222 MW by 9 pm.
On days like these, or rather weeks like the one just ended, the closeness of India’s capital to a comprehensive power collapse comes across loud and clear. Then came another disturbing news that Nathpa Jhakri hydel plant in HP, which supplies 150 MW to Delhi, had to be shut down. Adding to the crisis, another unit in Singrauli, which supplies 50 MW to Delhi, collapsed. The Karcham Wangtoo, Singrauli and Nathpa Jhakri plants suffered owing to an overload on the Agra-Gwalior line which is important for Delhi because power from the Western Grid comes through it.
Banality
In a few months, Delhi will go to the polls. The Sheila Dikshit government will face the usual volley of charges of corruption and nepotism. The entry of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the election arena has injected an altogether new angle to the political discourse over power. Unlike the principal Opposition BJP, which never appeared to rock the boat over the discoms’ runaway profiteering, AAP’s activists have consistently highlighted the crony capitalistic empire at the heart of Delhi’s most vital infrastructure sector — power.
AAP’s firebrand leader, Arvind Kejriwal, has highlighted time and again the non-performance of the power regulator, Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, which has brought unjust profits to the two discoms — TDPl and BSES. But guiding his activism is a high degree of naiveté. He seems to believe that the vast majority of Delhiites will be swayed by righteousness and vote out the Sheila Dikshit regime for its apparent corrupt dealings.
Neither Kejriwal nor the BJP have a substantial and scientific answer for Dikshit’s atrocious position, articulated in response to the two parties’ attacks over the most recent tariff hike, that if Delhiites have got to have non-stop power supply, they would necessarily have to pay a high rate for it.
The tariff was hiked by 22 per cent in 2011, followed by three rounds of upward revision in 2012 — 5 per cent in February, 2 per cent in May and by 26 per cent in July. In February 2013, it went up 3 per cent and in May by 1.5 per cent ostensibly to adjust the power purchase cost of the distribution companies. As if that was not enough, DERC is reported to be already considering a further hike in the tariff.
The Dikshit regime has quite convinced ordinary Delhiites that life in Delhi is replete with never-ending cost-spiral experiences. Since the Opposition does not have a well-researched counter to this preposterous position and is content in limiting its campaign to allegations — however true — of facilitating windfall profits, the nightmare of huge electricity bills is expected to last for another five-year spell.
Power from the Sun
BJP’s Vijay Goel is promising across-the-board 15 per cent slashes in power bills if his party is voted in, the ordinary Delhiite is experienced enough in the guiles of netas to see through the claim. On the other hand, Kejriwal promises the moon — a corruption-free society where every cost will be audited and necessarily reduced by weeding out the graft element.
But if, on the other hand, there could be a leader in the BJP or the AAP to promise the sun (and not the moon), there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
Delhi needs a government which actively promotes solar power generation by encouraging people to instal photovoltaic (PV) units on every rooftop on a graded subsidy structure. This could bring about a dramatic difference not only to the power situation but the per-household bill. With 350 days of sunshine a year, Delhi has immense potential for producing solar energy using photovoltaic rooftop installations.
What the Kejriwals and Goels seem blissfully unaware of is the obligation under the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The uneducated, rabble-rousing politicians of this country are unaware of the criminal negligence of the Manmohan Singh government in upholding India’s responsibilities in the fight to stymie climate change. RPO targets define how much electricity in the country is estimated to be produced from renewable energy sources.
The RPO policy, devised under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), targeted to produce 5 per cent green electricity in 2009, 7 per cent in 2012 and 15 per cent by 2020. However, most of the States fixed their own RPO targets, which totalled just 5.44 per cent. As a result of the inconsistency between national renewable energy targets those fixed by State electricity
regulators, the country registered a deficit of 1.56 per cent or loss of 14,268 million units of electricity. The actual loss is 18,300 mn units.
Sheila’s Delhi is just a satellite of the Manmohan dispensation and so it set for itself a measly 2 per cent RPO target in 2012. This too went unfulfilled. Delhi’s 3 power stations — Rajghat, Indraprastha and Badarpur — burn fossil fuels to meet the power demand of the Capital. Rajghat alone dumps 5.5 tonnes of arsenic in Yamuna every year. The Delhi Government has no option but to keep Coal-based Rajghat power plant operational as no alternative arrangement for power has been made in the capital. It is responsible for adding tonnes of toxic emissions into Delhi’s air. These units’ impact is so prominent that one can clearly spot them spewing toxic fumes in the Google satellite imagery.
In 2012, DERC was asked by the Centre to set up 120 MW renewable power projects. Considering that the city receives 350 days of sunlight that could be harnessed as solar energy, the target was very much achievable. But the State failed to do its bit. Had it completed its target of last year, Delhi could have overcome the power deficit to some degree in this year. Moreover, switching to renewable energy would have freed us, as consumers, from the vicious cycle of the rising coal prices and power tariff.
The cliché-ridden campaigns of Sheila Dikshit’s detractors will achieve neither their short-term political objective of seizing power by fooling the masses, nor offer long-term solutions to Delhi’s power problems. What is needed most is a political class with some awareness of the global reality and a vision for a green tomorrow.
(The writer is News Editor, The Pioneer)