While it may not be easy to wish away power cuts overnight, the reduction in load shedding hours signal some improvement in the State's power scenario.
The load shedding hours has officially been reduced to one from three. The supply, however, continues to remain erratic on certain days.
The supply went for a toss with almost the entire State excepting Chennai going without power for 10-12 hours a day, in the last couple of months. There is some improvement in the power situation at present.
The Tangedco Chief Engineer at Coimbatore, Mr A. Thangavelu, said that wind generation was picking up was at around 3,000 MW at present.
Further, the 840 MW thermal station in Mettur, which was shut down early this month after a fire accident is expected to be commissioned within the next couple of days. With the commissioning of Mettur thermal station and generation from the thermal plants in North Chennai and Tuticorin, plus the wind generation, there should be some improvement in the power situation in the coming days.
“We may not face the same power shortage situation next summer, but I am not ruling out a 20 per cent cut next year. Only in 2014-15, it (power cut) might go” he said.
Delivering the inaugural address at the one-day workshop on the PAT (Perform, Achieve and Trade) scheme under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, organised jointly by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, New Delhi and the South India Textile Research Association here, he urged participants to conserve energy.
“Energy conservation is the need of the hour. The Government is emphasising this and we at Tangedco are sensitising consumers. There is some level of awareness, but people are not taking it seriously. If every household goes for energy-saving CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) bulbs, the saving would be to the tune of 600-700 MW. There is scope for energy saving of up to 30 per cent in domestic use, 20 per cent in industry and 10 per cent in commercial use. The overall total saving is estimated at 2000 MW,' he said.
Besides these, there is scope for energy saving in agri-connections. “Consumers are not opting for star-rated motors, not using capacitors, resulting in energy loss,” he said.
T&D losses
Reverting to the transmission and distribution loss, he said “some plans have been initiated to reduce such losses. Ten places such as Coimbatore, Dharapuram, Udumalpet etc have been identified for installing meters and laying new cables and so on to reduce the transmission and distribution loss. An allocation of Rs 500 crore has been made for the purpose and this work should be through in the next three years. We plan to do it on turnkey basis because of labour shortage,” he added.
He also highlighted the difficulty in getting land for erection of sub-stations to resolve this issue. “People are reluctant to give land to the Electricity Board. Though we have the capacity to enhance generation by 5,000-6,000 MW in a span of three years, we are not getting the land and the price of the land too has soared.”
“Generation might have eased, but transmission is becoming a bigger problem. We need more sub-stations and only if these come up, we can give uninterrupted supply without fluctuation,” Mr Thangavelu said.
To a query, he said “higher wind generation should give some respite, but when it is high, there are complaints of low voltage. In order to maintain the voltage, we resort to load shedding.”