National

EBs not keen on `expensive' n-power

By R.K. Radhakrishnan

KAIGA (Karnataka) April 3. The Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) is on a massive capacity expansion drive, but most Electricity Boards, cash-strapped or nearly bankrupt, do not seem keen on purchasing power from it.

Despite visible signs of power shortage, the EBs have been talking about improvement and cutting losses to their own systems — transmission and distribution — than look at nuclear power, which is expensive compared to thermal and hydel power.

"We have a little problem. But I am confident that nuclear power will prove to be cheaper,'' the NPC Chairman and Managing Director, V.K. Chaturvedi said.

Also, the NPC says there is no alternative but to look at nuclear power given the fast depleting resources to produce other forms of electricity and the unreliable nature of hydel power. Nuclear power may be costlier now, but by 2007, the rates will come down.

"Earlier the Government fixed the rate at Rs.4.20 a unit. In 2007-08, the rate will fall to about Rs. 3. No thermal power station in this region (south India) will be able to give you power at this rate,'' he said.

Asked if the NPC had taken into consideration the additional security needs, the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman, Anil Kakodkar, said these costs would be either negligible or marginal.

"We will factor this in a very comprehensive way. There is already an in-built resistance. Now we will reassess that.'' The exercise of looking at security from a technical angle has begun.

Right now, the EBs owe the NPC about Rs. 3,400 crores. The NPC is likely to recover around Rs.2,700 crores in one way or the other, after the Montek Singh Committee report — which decided in favour of States — was accepted by the Cabinet.

"The NPC's recovery rates are the best in the country. Still, I am not able to recover about Rs. 400 crores every year and that is mounting,'' Mr. Chaturvedi said.

Also, frequent overdrawal by EBs — a pointer to the lack of any grid discipline — lead to problems for equipment in the generating stations.

"The frequency of the grid here (Kaiga, for instance) is very poorly controlled. These large machines can remain healthy only if there is discipline in the grid. In Kaiga, the turbine is subjected to very unacceptable fluctuations of frequency,'' the AEC Chairman said.

``I was shocked today to see the control room. The frequency is always remaining 47.8 to 48. Nowhere in the world does it come down from 50 — between 49.9 and 50.1. Those are the limits in the world today,'' the NPC CMD said.

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