Colossal 1,320 crore units of power produced by India's largest power producer
NTPC went waste due to lack of adequate technology at the regional grid level to transmit power to the national grid. At an average price of Rs 1.60 per unit, this works out to a monetary loss of a whopping Rs 2,100 crore.
NTPC generated 220.54 billion (22,054 crore) units of electricity in 2010-11 as against 218.84 billion (21,884 crore) units in 2009-10. Thus, the units lost account for about 5.98 per cent of NTPC's total power production during the year.
Top NTPC officials said that such losses can be overcome only when the power producers are linked to the regional as well as the national grids. "We need to have an effective mechanism in place to ensure that the precious power generated does not go waste.
Blowing a fuse
Why the loss?
- Lack of contingency planning
- Need for rescheduling of power generation and load-shedding
- Lack of power transmission tech between the regional & national grids
Damage control
- NTPC officials said that such losses can be overcome when the power producers are linked to the regional & national grids
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There has to be adequate provision to ensure that unused power from us is diverted to the national grid so that it can be adequately used," explained an NTPC official. The country has been divided into five regions for transmission systems, namely, northern region, north eastern region, eastern region, southern region and western region.
The Interconnected transmission system within each region is called the regional grid. "There is a lack of contingency planning. We have to work out the rescheduling of power generation and load-shedding at the earliest," said an official.
However, due to various reasons such as spatial development of load in the network and non-commissioning of load center generating units, certain pockets in the power system are not yet operating under normal conditions, he added.
When asked, a power ministry official admitted that the government has not been able to adequately address the issue of utilisation of unused power by ensuring that it reaches the national grid. He said that there is a lack of power transmission technology between the regional and national grids and that the concerned agencies were working on it.
Besides NTPC, other power producers too, have reported similar losses. The power ministry has so far been able to add 34,462 MW of power during the current Plan period (2007-12). The Planning Commission had revised the power ministry's earlier plan of adding over 78,000 MW power during the 2007-12 Plan period to 62,000 MW. It has set a target of adding over one lakh MW of electricity during the XII Plan (2012-2017).
However, the ministry is finding it difficult to meet the revised target due to the sluggish progress of hydro power projects. It added over 12,000 MW of power by commissioning 42 power projects by March, 2011, of which five are state-run NTPC's projects.
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