Electricity generation from the country’s hydro power plants has fallen 11.4 per cent in the first quarter of the fiscal, despite the monsoon being better than normal in most parts.
According to data from the Central Electricity Authority, hydro power plants in the country generated 30,800.24 million units during April-June 2016, compared with 34,785.45 million units in the same month last year.
While most of the southern hydro power plants run on rain-fed reservoirs, in the North the hydro power plants are river-fed.
“The northern parts of the country started receiving heavy rainfall from early July, so there is still scope for hydro power generation to improve in the second quarter as the monsoon season moves along,” an industry official said.
The India Meteorological Department predicts that the country will receive 4 per cent to 10 per cent higher rainfall than the long period average during the current monsoon season.
While monsoon rains were weak in the northern region in June, over the last two weeks rainfall has improved and as on July 19, the country received 4 per cent higher rainfall than the long period average.
Even as electricity generation from hydro power plants dipped, the growth in generation at coal-based power plants more than compensated for the dip.
Coal-based power plants generated 13.7 per cent more electricity in the first quarter of 2016-17 at 234,190.23 million units, compared with 205,899.41 million units in the same quarter last year.
Despite the increased generation, plant load factors of coal-based power plants were only marginally better in the first quarter at 63.23 per cent, compared with 61.55 per cent in the same quarter last year.
Plant load factors are an indicator of the capacity utilisation of power plants.
Gas-based power generation also continued to show improvement. In the first quarter, gas-based power generation was 9.4 per cent higher than the same quarter last year at 12,510.13 million units.
In the same quarter last year, gas-based power plants generated 11,426.59 million units.
Plant load factors of gas-based power plants remained flat at around 23.42 per cent.