The Energy Department is striving to bring down the power purchase costs by closely monitoring the generating units while the DISCOMs explored ways to contribute to the goal.
Power purchases from the spot market have facilitated savings to the tune of ₹700 crore. Cost-effective power will contribute to industrial and agricultural growth thereby give a big boost to the economy as a whole, said Energy Secretary N. Srikant.
Hoisting the National Tricolour at Vidyut Soudha on the occasion of 74th Independence Day on Saturday, Mr. Srikant said the entire power procurement process right from meter readings up to payments, reconciliation and settlements among the DISCOMs and updation of financial accounting systems was being covered by an Enterprise Resource Package (ERP).
He stated that the government was providing nine hour day time free power supply to 18.72 lakh agricultural connections through 6,663 feeders across the State, of which 6,136 (92%) are now capable of supplying power for nine hours during the day.
In order to extend agriculture supply during the daytime, the government was gearing up to install 10,000 MW solar capacity to feed agriculture consumers exclusively.
The recently announced renewable energy export policy targeted generation of 120 GW of solar and wind power put together. The power utilities met the highest demand of 200 Million Units on May 10, 2019 and were bracing to meet the imminent surge in demand during the Kharif and Rabi seasons.
AP power utilities have reduced their Aggregate Technical & Commercial losses from 16.36% in 2018-19 to 13.36% in 2019-2020. It was the lowest in the country, Mr. Srikant added.
Transco Joint Managing Director K. Sridhar Reddy, Directors K. Praveen Kumar (grid & transmission), K Muthupandian (finance) and G. Chandrasekhar Raju (thermal) and AP-Genco Director (finance) B. Venkatesulu Reddy were among those present.