Aman Sood
Tribune News Service
Patiala, December 14
Despite paying crores of rupees to private thermal plants, Punjab continues to buy short- term power from national power exchange to meet the demand, even as private coal-based plants in the state are left with “limited coal stocks”. Around two months ago, the state had to resort to power cuts due to acute coal shortage.
’36 coal rakes in transit’
State owned units will start operating from December 15 as the ban on their operation will come to an end. A Venu Prasad, CMD, PSPCL
Sources said Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has been buying power worth Rs 13 crore everyday to meet the electricity demand. “This despite the fact that the power demand in the state is as low as 7,000 MW as compared to the peak season demand of around 15,000 MW,” they said.
The coal shortage at private thermal power plants in the state, coupled with the order of the Commission for Air Quality Management in the NCR to shut down thermal units — Lehra Mohabatt and Ropar— has forced the PSPCL to buy power from the national power exchange.
Insiders in the PSPCL confirmed that while private sector thermal plants at Talwandi Sabo and GVK were running at half load as the coal stock varies between one to two days, Rajpura thermal plant has one unit under maintenance since November 15 and only one unit was running at full load.
“The total thermal generation in the state is around 1,700 MW. Talwandi Sabo’s three units with a capacity of 1,980 MW are running at 900 MW. Similarly, GVK is generating 300 MW against a capacity of 540 MW,” said sources. VK Gupta, spokesperson, All India Power Engineers’ Federation, said, “The coal stock at Talwandi Sabo is just sufficient for one day and GVK has three days stock. IPPS is not maintaining sufficient coal stock despite clear guidelines for minimum coal stock of 15 days. The coal stock at Ropar and Lehra Mohabatt is for 10 and 16 days, but these plants cannot be operated as per directions of the Commission for Air Quality Management in the NCR.”
“It is high time the PSPCL starts taking stern action against plants short of coal. They flout the guidelines just to save on inventory cost,” he said. The power supply in Punjab is 1,350 lakh units comprising 425 lakh units from private thermal plants in the state.
A senior PSPCL official said they were purchasing 270 to 300 lakh units daily at Rs 4.50 per unit. “The total daily purchase is worth Rs 13 crore,” he said.
A Venu Prasad, CMD, PSPCL, said, “We have served notice on a private thermal plant for coal shortage and repeated outages. From January, the Government of India has framed new guidelines for private thermal plants in terms of coal stocks to be maintained by them.”
Coal stocks shrink, PSPCL buys 300L units daily
{$excerpt:n}
