PSPCL achieves major reduction in losses

The State power utility — Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) — on Thursday claimed to achieve significant reduction in losses through a series of strategic initiatives, taken during 2017-18.

It was claimed that the PSPCL successfully brought down its financial losses from Rs 2,836 crores in 2016-17 to about Rs 1,250 crores on normative basis in 2017-18, on account of reduction in Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses, as well as a series of other measures undertaken to streamline the systems and boost efficiencies.

“T&D losses had come down from 15.25 per cent in 2016-17 to 14.50 per cent in 2017-18,” said an official spokesperson.

Spokesperson said that at the same time, PSPCL has succeeded in reducing its fixed cost or capacity charges paid against power surrendered to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and private thermal plants (independent power producer (IPP)). From Rs 1,249 crore in 2016-17, the figure has come down to Rs 820 crore in 2017-18, across 31 units.

“This has been achieved through banking and bilateral arrangements with the states of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh,” said the spokesperson.

The official statement issued stated that the PSPCL has considerably increase sale of surplus power in the open market through power exchange (Indian Energy Exchange), selling 1218.68 MU of energy at Rs 445.50 crores during the year gone by, as against 361.18 MU at Rs  107.54 crores in the previous year.

Further, there has been an increase of 16 percent, over the same period, in PSPCL’s total own Generation (Gross) from Hydel Power Stations. The number of units generated has gone up from 3913 million units in 2016-17 to 4549 MU in 2017-18.

PSPCL has also signed several new Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) at lower tariff during 2017-18 including 200 MW at Rs 3.17 per unit with DVC, 200 MW at Rs 3.49 per unit with JP Karcham (PTC), along with two PPAs for wind power with Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited — one for 150 MW at Rs 2.72 per unit and another for 200 MW at Rs 2.52 per unit.

Spokesperson said that about 3.5 lakh new power connections were released to domestic, commercial, industrial consumers during the year.

The total sale of power to various consumers in the state rose from 44,199 MU in 2016-17 to 47,330 MU in 2017-18.