No power crisis for Telangana

Hyderabad: Even as several States are facing power crisis due to depleting coal supplies, Telangana has ensured that it has adequate coal reserves for the next 10 days. With Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) restoring its operations to capacity levels after the recent rains, there will be no shortage of coal in the immediate future […]

Hyderabad: Even as several States are facing power crisis due to depleting coal supplies, Telangana has ensured that it has adequate coal reserves for the next 10 days. With Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) restoring its operations to capacity levels after the recent rains, there will be no shortage of coal in the immediate future in Telangana and in fact, efforts are being made to supply additional coal to neighbouring States through SCCL, officials said.

Telangana is the only State in the country to supply uninterrupted quality power to farm, industrial, commercial and domestic sectors. On Sunday, the peak power consumption was at around 8,827 MW, and about 5,000 MW of this power demand was met through solar and hydel power generation.

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“The State has thermal units with installed capacity of 3,440 MW, which require around 30,000-32,000 tonnes of coal everyday. The TSGenco has about 3.8 lakh tonnes of coal stocks available at its disposal at present. The NTPC-Ramagundam which also contributes to the State’s power supplies, also has around 1.2 lakh tonnes of coal reserves which will last four-five days, which makes the situation very comfortable,” Energy Minister G Jagdish Reddy told Telangana Today.

The Minister said that even in the event of severe coal crisis, Telangana can ramp up hydel generation. “The fact that we have never felt the need to import coal because we are self-sufficient clearly indicates the position we are in. Moreover, our thermal generations is through pit-head power stations which are located close to the coal mines that gives us priority in getting coals stocks,” Jagdish Reddy said.

The SCCL supplies coal to all the thermal power stations of TSGenco as well as NTPC-Ramagundam. The company is producing nearly 1.8 lakh tonnes of coal per day that is supplied to thermal power stations in Telangana as well as Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. “Nearly 30-32 rakes of coal is supplied to these States everyday while Telangana’s consumption is just six to seven rakes per day. Though there was a minor setback in coal production due to recent rains, we are restoring operations to full scale,” SCCL officials said.

With thermal power stations in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh facing acute shortage of coal, there is a sudden demand for coal from SCCL. Amid reports that India may face energy crisis as the coal reserves may suffice only for the next four days, the Union Energy Ministry indicated that they may have to lift coal produced from SCCL to other States to meet their coal demand for thermal power generation in the next three or four days.

However, the SCCL authorities have informed that they have to meet the demands of their existing customers as per the Fuel Supply Agreements (FSA) before supplying coal to others. Under these circumstances, they are making efforts to ramp up production which was affected due to the recent rains.

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