Centre anticipating power shortfall in June
He reportedly directed officials to maximise thermal power generation to meet the power demand during non-solar hours.
Hyderabad: Anticipating a power shortfall in June, the Centre has reportedly decided to defer shutting down power plants for planned maintenance during June and revive 5 GW of idle coal plant capacity across the country. According to reports, national load despatch centre Grid-India has projected a maximum night-time demand of 235 GW in June.
However, only about 187 GW of thermal capacity and 34 GW from renewable sources are available right now in the country to meet the demand during June.
Power Minister R K Singh held an emergency meeting recently to take stock of the situation, and decided to defer shutting down power plants for planned maintenance during June.
He reportedly directed officials to maximise thermal power generation to meet the power demand during non-solar hours.
However, State Energy officials claim that the State might not face any problem during June as it has taken measures to meet the demands. According to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Telangana’s energy requirement during June is likely to touch 6424 million units. State power officials claimed that they would easily meet the demand as they had managed to supply over 9,000 mu during March.
According to the Energy department, there has been a 52 percent increase in power consumption this year. The State had witnessed the highest ever intra-day peak load of power on the transmission and highest ever daily energy consumption on March 8, with the two clocking at 15,623 megawatt and 305.19 million units respectively.
“We are already supplying over 200 mu per day.
There is more than enough power available for supply in the State. We will easily manage the energy requirement not only in June but the entire year,” power officials claimed.
In May 2023, it was announced that India would pause the commissioning of new coal power plants for the next five years, apart from the ones already in the pipeline, in order to boost the renewable capacity of the country.
However, following anticipated shortage of power during the coming months, the Centre has shifted its stance from adding no new coal power capacity apart from planned ones to adding 80 GW of coal power capacity in the country, sources said.
The NDA government had slowed capacity growth based on the heavily polluting fuel to focus on the green energy transition, with an eye to meeting 2070 net zero emission goals.
However, due to the current situation, the Centre has decided to defer shutting down of old thermal plants.
