Power conundrum: Is the crisis for real, consumers beg to know

BHUBANESWAR: Is the power crisis in the State for real? A cursory glance at the grid status reports of the State Load Despatch Centre (SLD), Odisha gives a picture contrary to what the mandarins of the State power sector management have been painting since the problem erupted on Monday following outage of an unit of NTPC’s Darlipali super thermal power station.

The Tata Power managed four power distribution companies (discoms) in their day-ahead schedule have been indenting less power but drawing more. If there is actual shortage, how Gridco, the bulk supplier of power to the State, is meeting the surplus demand of the discoms poses a big question.“Had the case been reverse - the discoms drawing less power than what they scheduled for a day - one can understand that there is a shortage,” said  power analyst Anand Mohapatra.

Take for example the supply and demand position on April 25. The power status report said the discoms had made a schedule for 4,187 MW of power for April 24 but overdrew 4,513 MW. The peak demand of the day was 5,237 MW while the minimum demand was 3,876 MW. The availability of the power was 4,676.67 MW after overdrawal of 110.13 MW from central sector.

Similarly, the power schedule of the discoms for April 25 was 4,353 MW and their drawal was 4,624 MW. The instantaneous peak demand at 9.24 pm was 5,354 MW while the average demand was 4,775 MW.
The situation was the same on April 26. The drawal by the discoms exceeded their demand by 270 MW. The peak and off-peak demand were 5,148 MW and 4,033 MW respectively while the day-average demand was 4,775 MW.

The power status report from April 19 to 25 said that the day-ahead schedule of discoms were 4,247 MW, 4,246 MW, 4,170 MW, 4,107 MW, 4,251 MW and 4,187 MW respectively. The actual drawal of power during these days were 4,526 MW, 4,495 MW, 4,430 MW, 4,319 MW, 4,373 MW and 4,513 MW.

Secretary, National Institute of Indian Labour and President of Upabhokta Mahasangha, Ramesh Chandra Satpathy said the actual electricity demand of the State is nearly 5,500 MW but the discoms are deliberately buying less power to save the high transmission and distribution loss (around 50 per cent) in the low transmission (LT) sector especially the domestic consumers in the rural areas.

“This is a conspiracy by the discoms, and Gridco and the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) are part of it. On an average, the discoms are saving around `250 crore a month towards energy bill by drawing less power than the actual demand,” Satpathy said.