• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Major power plants in Kerala shut down for want of fuel

G.K. Nair

KOCHI, Oct. 29

UNDECLARED power cuts continue in various parts of Kerala as the gap between demand and supply has widened following the shutting down of some of the thermal and diesel plants in the State.

The State had copious rain fall this year and all the hydel reservoirs have substantial storage of water. But, as the turbines and generators at the major hydel projects are very old, their capacity utilisation used to be much less. Add to this, the non -payment of dues to thermal plants such as BSES Power Ltd had compelled them to stop generation of power. The State-owned Brahmapuram Diesel Power Plant (BDPP) has also had to shut down for want of fuel.

The cash-crunch State electricity board had to pay Rs 110 crore to the BSES and the non-payment of the dues had resulted in the closure of the unit, an official source said. Similarly, the BDPP at nearby Brahmapuram had to shut down from mid-September fo r want of fuel which the IOC had stopped supplying as the dues mounted.

The State electricity board had been incurring a loss of around Rs 90 crore per month for the past several months in power sales alone, a KSEB official pointed out. The total daily availability of power used to be around 34.50 million units when all the hydel and thermal plants were operated and including the power drawn from the Central grid, they said. But, when the thermal and diesel plants were shut down, the availability had dropped substantially, they said. The hydel projects could generate 17.28 million units daily.

The potential of major power projects could not be exploited fully, said Mr K.P. Rajan, a technical and management expert. He said that the turbines and generators at these projects were over 25 years old and their design efficiency at the time of commis sioning of the plants was 75 per cent, which was of course best at that time, he said.

The installed capacity of these projects was about 1,500 MW. Given the low efficiency and other mechanical problems, the actual generation possible could be 1,200 MW from the projects having the total installed capacity of 2000 MW, he said.

Therefore, if the turbines and generators at these hydel projects were replaced with new high-efficiency once, then the power generation could be raised by at least 30 per cent from the existing plants, he pointed out.

Add to this was the 30 per cent transmission loss. Of the 1,200 MW power generated, 360 MW was lost in transmission. Thus, the actual saleable availability of power was much less making the cost much higher, he said. None of the proposed 25 mini and smal l hydel projects with a total generating capacity of 43.23 MW had taken off. While, the future of the proposed major thermal plants also in the private sector hung in balance, he said.

According to sources close to the promoters of the proposed thermal plants, uncertainty still hovers over these units. The Petronet LNG, they said, was insisting that the thermal plants should come up first while the power companies wanted the work on th e LNG terminal to commence before the construction of the power plants.