Fest in view, 2000MW power to be bought from open market

LUCKNOW: The ensuing power crisis during festival season because of coal crisis and dysfunctional power plants has put the Akhilesh Yadav government in overdrive. The government has decided to purchase over 2000MW of power from open market to meet demand which is expected to escalate significantly in the next couple of days. In fact, the demand which is presently hovering in the range of around 8500MW is likely to touch the mark of around 12500MW on Diwali.
On Saturday, the UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) top brass summoned the officials of various departments to drive out a strategy to make enough power available to the state’s urban as well as rural areas. State government has been drawing sharp criticism from various quarters, including the opposition, for not doing enough to meet the growing power crisis.
“The corporation would be purchasing enough power from the open market so that major cities get 24 hours and rural areas get at least 12 hours of power supply from October 20 to October 25,’’ said UPPCL managing director A P Mishra while speaking to TOI. Sources said that the corporation has already managed to bid for 1350 Mw of power. The power would be bought at the rate between Rs 4.50 to Rs 5.30 per unit. UP would be buying around 250 Mw from Adani, 200 Mw from JSW company and 300 Mw from NBN company.
The MD said the power availability from the Central power plants have lessened significantly because of one or the other reason. Some of the Centrally owned power plants which have tripped include 210MW unit of NTPC in Unchahar, 110MW Tanda, 200MW Singrauli. “All the more power availability from the Central quota is around 3500MW as against the allocated quota of around 5000MW,’’ he said.
A host of power plants in the UP sector too remain tripped because of technical snag resulting in the shortfall of power availability. The latest one to trip is the 110MW Parichha unit which went off the grid because of boiler tube leakage (BTL) on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday. A day before that a 600MW unit of Lanco stopped working because of the boiler tube leakage. A 300MW unit of Rosa had already tripped because of a problem in turbine.
Sources said chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was apprised about the situation by the UPPCL. It was following this that Yadav, who also hold the portfolio of power, asked the UPPCL to go in for purchase of power from the open market.
Sources said purchase would not be easy to come through for the UPPCL since power availability in Northern and Eastern grid was low (Haryana was tied up because of elections) and the western corridor was also congested in terms of power availability.