The Hindu Business Line : Reservoir levels will last till May: KSEB

COPIOUS monsoon rains in the State this year have placed the Kerala State Electricity Board in a comfortable position with good storage of water in all the reservoirs of its hydel projects, which would be sufficient till May next.

With the water storage available as on Friday morning, 2,685.71 million units of power could be generated. Even after keeping the reserve capacity power could be generated at 18 million units a day till May next, a senior KSEB official told Business Line on Friday. He said that last year this time the water storage was enough to generate only 1,977 million units.

He said that the current demand was 35 million units a day. The hydel projects now generate 18 million units while 15 million units are drawn from the central generating stations (CGS).

The board's diesel power generating units at Brahmapuram near here and Kasargode generate on an average 0.5 million units daily. The shortfall in the supply is met by drawing additional power from the CGS, he said.

The pooled cost of the power from the grid is around Rs 1.5 a unit. But for the additional power drawn it would be around Rs 2 a unit, he said. He said that availability from the CGS would depend on the generation of power at Ramagundam and Neyveli stations. Similarly, the cost would also differ between these two stations, he said.

According to the official, the peak demand for power in the State begins from December.

To meet the additional demand during the peak time, when the availability from CGS becomes difficult, the board might have to resort either to increase generation from the hydel projects or to draw power from the thermal plants, he pointed out.

However, the Government had already announced that it would not be taking power from both the thermal plants in the State - NTPC's Kayamkulam station and the BSES Kerala Power Ltd's unit at Pathalam near here in 2005-06.

As the peak time additional demand would be for a shorter duration, it would not be viable for the thermal stations to operate, he said.

On the other hand, if the generation by the hydel stations are raised that would result in drain on the water storage, he said. The government had already made it clear that it might not also resort to power-cut this year.

Through effective water management generation of power from the hydel stations could be regulated. But, total avoidance of the thermal power would depend on the availability of additional power from the Central pool, he said.

However, the Board had decided to increase the total allocation from the Central Generating Stations(CGS) from the present 867 MW to 1,042 MW for the year 2005-06, he said adding the KSEB proposed to avail 6,240.4 million units during the next fiscal.

The NTPC's 350 MW Naphtha based Kayamkulam power plant has been non-operational from May last for want of takers of power.