Not solving popular local demand on flood control by Hati river in Kalahandi costs the Orissa Government dearly in power sector

State facing power shortage during evening hours
Expressbuzz, July 20, 2009

BHUBANESWAR: After lifting scheduled load shedding of power from Saturday evening, the Orissa Power Transmission Corporation Limited (OPTCL), the State transmission utility was facing energy shortage during the evening peak today due to forced shut down of Indravati hydro power plants.

While the energy demand of the State at 8 pm on Sunday was over 2700 MW, the total availability from various sources was about 2550 MW. The State utility was making up the shortfall by overdrawing power from the eastern grid, sources in the state load dispatch centre (SLDC) said.

The power position of the State started improving from Friday following significant increase in the water levels in all the major reservoirs due to incessant and heavy downpour during the last week. As the energy situation normalises, OPTCL intimated the four distribution companies to lift load shedding.

The power situation, however, worsened today due to shutdown of three of the four units of Indravati hydro power station having generation capacity of 600 MW. As the Hati river is overflowing, the district administration of Kalahandi asked the hydro power station in-charge to shut down all the four units as a precautionary measure. Only one unit of 150 MW capacity was generating power during the evening peak, the sources said.

There will be no option for the State utility but to go for regulation in case the only unit of Indravati generating power was shut down and there was low frequency in the eastern grid, the sources said.

With the present water level in the reservoirs, the State has the capacity to generate nearly 1500 MW hydro power.

Though the State is facing unscheduled power cuts from the first week of June, official power regulation was imposed on June 22 and this was continuing till yesterday. The Government has not given fresh instruction to OPTCL for further extension of load restriction to industrial units which are getting only 50 per cent of their contractual demand since June 22.

One of the two units of Ib Thermal Power Station which is under scheduled shut down for maintenance is likely to be back to the grid on Monday.

With a generating capacity of 210 MW, the average availability of power from the Ib thermal unit is about 170 to 180 MW.