CMD, PSPCL, A.Venu Prasad on Wednesday said Punjab state power corporation limited has purchased 879 MW of Power from Power exchange at the rate of RS 3.85 per unit which will help in meeting the increased power demand in state due to hot summer and Paddy season.
PSPCL has made arrangements to meet the demand up to 13,700 MW. The purchase of power from the exchange is mainly due to failure of one unit of Talwandi Sabo thermal plant at Mansa. It met the highest power demand of 12805 MW and recorded consumption of 2901 lakh units on June 22 in the current paddy season. Prasad said that the demand is expected to rise further in the coming weeks.
He said that last year maximum demand and consumption remained at 12683 MW and 2822 lakh units in the same month -- June-2020 though record highest ever consumption of 3018 lakh units was recorded in the month of July 2020. The highest ever demand of 13606 MW was however, recorded in the month of July of the year 2019.
The CMD said that presently generation from inter state generating stations is running about 600 to 700 MW short compared to last year due to low hydro potential and outage of 400MW from four thermal units of Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd. (CGPL)Mundra. Also 615 MW unit of state IPP Talwandi Sabo power plant, Mansa is under forced outage.
He also added that this deficit has to be arranged on day to day basis in order to fulfill the demand. This deficit is being arranged by procuring power on a day to day basis from the market, limited to transmission constraints of the national grid.