The Hindu Business Line : APTransco braces for summer demand

THE Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (APTransco) is purchasing additional power and also resorting to load shedding on industrial feeders whenever necessary to ensure adequate power supply to the domestic and the agricultural sectors.

On Wednesday, the power utility had obtained a load relief of 1.72 million units (MU) from industrial feeders so as not to affect agricultural operations and domestic supply, the APTransco Director (Coordination), Mr P.M.K. Gandhi, and the Joint Managing Director, Mr G. Sai Prasad, told newspersons here on Thursday.

Besides, they said, APTransco was purchasing 600 MW from Power Trading Corporation (PTC), 200 MW from NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam and overdrawing 340 MW from Central Power Generating Stations to bridge the demand-supply gap, which was to the tune of 15 MU per day.

Consequently, the power utility was incurring an additional expenditure of Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore per day towards purchase of power. Overall, it was estimated that the power utility would be incurring an additional expenditure of Rs 200 crore towards purchase of high cost power this year.

The officials of APTransco said that there was no further scope to purchase power from any agency due to lack of availability in any State and also lack of transmission corridor. Foreseeing shortage of power during the summer, the power utility had entered into a two-month contract with PTC and NTPC for supply of additional power.

This has helped APTransco to provide adequate power to the agriculture sector and ensure uninterrupted power supply to the domestic sector in the rural areas from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

They said the peak demand at present was 6534 MW per day as against 6024 MW last year, an increase of 510 MW. The cumulative increase in agricultural demand in the current month would be 28.12 MU, an increase of 8.68 per cent over last year.

At the same time, hydel power generation this year was 2662 MU as against expected generation of 6280 MU, a shortfall of 57.6 per cent. The units of Kothagudem Thermal Power Station were out of service resulting in a loss of generation of 220 MW.

In view of this, APTransco was left with no alternative but to purchase additional power.

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