Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

No serious crisis: TNEB

By V. Jayanth

CHENNAI Sept. 7. With the Tuticorin thermal station back on stream, hydel generation picking up at Mettur and the private sector Pillayarperumal Nallur plant supplementing generation, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board is confident of tiding over the present crisis without any major hitch.

"We are meeting a demand for over 5000 MW today and fortunately, it is the week-end, when peak demand is also lower. As the demand during the next three days is expected to be on the lower side, there may not be loadshedding now. Today, we managed without any loadshedding", a senior TNEB official said.

The Neyveli Lignite Corporation had agreed to provide the entire generation from its first unit to Tamil Nadu, to make up for suspension of generation at its second unit.

About 450 MW was available already from the first unit. The NLC had also said the first of the two expansion units could go on stream by September 20.

The NLC is putting up 2x210 MW units in this expansion phase.

Asked about generation at Mettur, TNEB sources said about 190 MW was already coming from the hydel units and this could go up to 250 MW, as the authorities were stepping up water release from the reservoir to 15,000 cusecs.

On the whole, excluding Mettur, the current shortfall in hydel generation, compared to last year, was only around 400 million units.

The TNEB engineers say that in dealing with a demand-supply of 5000 to 6000 MW, the loss of 440 MW from Neyveli will not pose a serious challenge.

As the `worst period' on the demand side was over, the authorities are confident of seeing this phase through. By next month, Tamil Nadu would be able to draw on additional power from the `surplus' eastern region.

The NLC was expected to get the second unit back on stream in a week or 10 days. It had also taken up maintenance work now so that there would be no further disruption in generation.

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