Vijayawada: Discoms succeed in reducing power procurement cost

Vijayawada: In spite of the adverse conditions due to the lockdown following the outbreak of coronavirus, the AP Transco is continuously taking steps to reduce the power procurement cost.

A communiqué from the office of the Transco CMD Nagulapalli Srikanth said that during the lockdown all bulk consumers were shutdown. Only critical healthcare, government machinery, domestic and agriculture loads were being serviced by the grid. The peak demand of the State shifted from 11,000 MW to 8,500 MW and the minimum demand was pegged at 6,000 MW instead of 8,000 MW during normal times in this period of the year, it said.

The Transco officials said that the continuous availability of coal, fall in international gas and oil prices ensured adequate supply while the demand was hovering at 65 to 70 per cent of the usual peak loads experienced during summer.

By assessing how the power exchanges respond to these scenarios, the commercial teams were carefully placing bids in the DAM (Day-ahead market) or TAM (term-ahead market). An efficient team of power system engineers, qualified chartered accountants, statisticians and IT professionals were roped in to make the daily decisions of power purchase through exchange. `

As on date, the GENCO stations have the stocks that would be sufficient for 2 to 3 weeks of operation. VTPS has buffer for 18.93 days, RTPP for 27.65 days and Krishnapatnam units have stocked coal for next 14 days. After exhausting all the 'must run' stations like hydel, wind, solar and nuclear plants, Central generating stations and gas stations are being operated as per grid demand and strictly as per retail supply tariff orders as approved by the APERC, said JMD Chakradhar Babu.

On an average 15 to 25 MUs per day was purchased from power exchanges in April. This accounted to 824.88 MUs and the prices were ranging between Rs 2.16 to 2.66 per unit. "With this per unit average procurement cost from the exchange is Rs 1.6 less than the average power procurement cost allowed by the APERC. This has resulted in net savings of Rs 132 crore in April. And we are closely monitoring rates on a daily basis," explained CMD Srikanth, who is also the Energy Secretary of the State. Energy Minister Balineni Srinivas Reddy appreciated the efforts of the state electricity companies for providing quality uninterrupted supply to the hospitals, domestic and agriculture sectors during this crisis period.