Contrary to the Punjab Government’s claims of State being a ‘power surplus’, its power regulator on Tuesday made a revelation that it needs to purchase ‘more power’ to meet its requirements during summers. “Power is not surplus in summers, but it is surplus in winters. The PSPCl (Punjab State Power Corporation limited) has filed a petition with us to buy more power in summers to meet its requirements,” said Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) chairperson Romila Dubey on Tuesday. The State power utility, PSPCl, has proposed to buy 3500 MUs (million units) of power during summers, and the PSERC has given its approval for the same, said Dubey.
As of now, the rates at which the power is purchased have not been decided as the same will be fixed after calling the tenders, said a PSPCl official. “Power requirement increases April onwards and is so high due to summers and also during paddy season,” Dubey added. PSPCl, in its petition filed with the State power regulator, has projected surplus availability of 15,261 MUs throughout the year (2015-16) with estimating total power availability of 66,937 MUs against requirement of 51,676 MUs.
It has even estimated surplus availability of energy during crucial months of May which is 2,099 MUs, June 1,277 MUs, July 758 MUs and August 393 MUs when summers are at peak and paddy sowing season is on. However, the PSPCl has maintained that even in the surplus scenario, “eventualities” cannot be ruled out in the power system which may require regulation of load and supply.
PSPCl has cited “eventualities” such as forced outage of power plants for longer duration, any downward revision in central sector schedule due to longer duration outage of central sector generating units or any limitation in transmission network may require imposition of regulator measures. Painting a rosy picture of power availability in the summer, PSPCl said that there will be availability of surplus power because of the addition of new generation capacities with in the State.
“Primarily due to additional generational capacities added within the State and also from the State in the share form of the Central sector projects, there will be surplus availability of electricity during most of the months of 2015-16,” it had stated in its petition. So far, two units of Rajpura thermal power plants (2X700 MW) has been synchronised while one unit (1X660MW) of Talwandi Sabo plant has been put on bar. Remaining units if 660 MW of Talwandi Sabo plant are likely to be synchronised before the paddy season in 2015-16. During previous year, PSPCl had to impose power cuts on consumers in view of short coal supply to its power plants, leading to dip in power generation.
Punjab has seen maximum unrestricted and restricted demand for power at 2,302 lakh units per day on July 6, 2014 and 2,454 lUs a day on July 12 last year. Among power regulatory measures, PSPCl proposed power cuts, impose weekly off day on large and medium industries, peak load restrictions on industry, regulate supply to AP (agricultural pumpsets) consumers.