Transco happy with copious rains

Hyderabad: The Transmission Corporation of Telangana is quite happy with the copious rains and production of hydel power at record levels in this monsoon season as they have helped to meet the demand for power in the State with minimum stress.

The officials of the Transco informed that this year due to continuous rainfall in Karnataka and Maharashtra States the inflows to Krishna Basin are at historical high to the tune of 1,345 TMC as of now.

In Telangana State, the major hydel power stations are on Krishna Basin. To utilise maximum hydel generation all hydel power stations are continuously kept in service and this year about 2,716 MU of power is generated from them.

The peak generation of 2,211 MW has taken place on September 24. The generation during the previous year is 1,364 MU during the same period.

The present demand in terms of peak and energy in the State during the month of October is 8,532 MW and 166.35 MU per day when compared to 10,600 MW and 216.9 MU per day on the same period previous year which is less by 19.5 per cent and 23.3 per cent respectively.

Similarly, in the month of September also the peak demand and energy is less by 10 per cent and 17 per cent respectively. This is mainly on account of continuous rainfall in the State, which led to minimum power requirement from farming sector.

The requirement of farming sector generally during Khariff season will be about 45 per cent of total State demand. Also, due to continuous rainfall the requirement of power from other sectors of consumer has also come down.

To maintain economic load generation balance and grid security all possible steps were taken to utilise maximum hydel generation by reducing conventional generation at Central, State and Independent Power Producers.

In addition to running the thermal units at technical minimum, some of the units are kept under reserve shut down, power is not being scheduled from short term contracts, sale of power in the exchange and even backing down of renewable during some days was done.

The lower than usual Khariff demand, high hydel generation and non-materialisation of Lift Irrigation Loads during this year are unexpected developments resulting in backing down of thermal stations and payment of fixed cost to generators.