The service providers have been asked to ensure round the clock power supply to the consumers during a meeting was held at UERC presided over by its chairman, Subhash Kumar and attended among others by commissioner Garhwal, district magistrates of Garhwal districts and chief engineers, superintendent engineers and executive engineers, UPCl. UERC officials made a presentation before the participants of the requirements of strictly enforcing the acts and the regulations on the matter.
Kumar informed that the commission had issued formats to UPCl regarding submission of monthly report on status of release of new connections and calculation of penalty. However, he regretted that UPCl was yet to provide the information sought. He added that there were many instances of default by UPCl in providing statutory services as per the SoP/ Supply Code Regulations of the Commission.
During the meeting, it was decided that the field officers of UPCl would submit all the formats issued in this regard to the concerned DMs and the Commissioner. The DMs would hold district wise monthly review meeting with the EE/SE of UPCl of the divisions falling within their districts and the Commissioner, Garhwal would further hold a monthly review meeting for the whole Garhwal region with the SE/CE of UPCl in this regard. The DMs shall submit reports to the commissioner who would then submit the monthly information to UERC/Commission, Chief Minister’s office, Principal Secretary (Energy), MD, UPCl.
Due to increase in demand and absence in capacity additions, the State has been witnessing shortages particularly during summer months. In view of this, UERC has been pushing UPCl to enter into long term commitments with the generating stations. Currently, the installed capacity of the generating stations under the control of UJVN ltd. is about 1250 MW which gives a generation of almost 900 MW in summers. Power available from central generating stations is about 700 MW and the peak demand during summer months in the State is around 2000 MW, thereby resulting in shortage of about 500 MW of power. For the first time, the UERC has allowed UPCl to enter into long term (25-35 Years) PPAs with Thermal (Gas)/hydro generators of capacity around 500 MW (428 MW from three gas- based generating stations located in Kashipur and 70 MW from a hydro station in Himachal Pradesh.