Drought is good news for state

KOLKATA: The drought that has struck northern India has strangely brought good tidings for West Bengal.
The drought has resulted in 35 per cent lower generation by the country’s hydel power plants, causing severe power shortage in northern India. West Bengal is set to exploit this opportunity by utilising the low demand during off-peak hours to export power to other states.
With half the rainy season over, there is little possibility that the power deficit in northern India would be covered, since the Himalayan rivers will freeze with the onset of winter.The Union power ministry feels that the only way to tackle the situation is to draw surplus power from eastern part India.
The low demand in the east has been one of the major problems for power plants of the region, due to which low plant load factors (PLF) have been a regular feature. As against an average PLF of 69 per cent, most of the power plants in eastern India operate below 50 per cent.
The situation is likely to change now. At a recent meeting in New Delhi, the power ministry emphasised that tapping surplus power from the east is the only way to solve the power crisis in the north. According to estimates, around 1,400 MW of power can be exported from power plants in West Bengal and the region.
Apart from boosting the PLFs, which would improve the efficiencies of the plants, it would also result in improved finances. The main reason for low PLFs is the low demand during off-peak hours. This creates a lot of operational problems for these plants. As these are thermal plants, there is a time lag before they can reach peak levels of generation. If generation can be increased during the off-peak period, the plants can operate at high PLFs throughout.
This problem is more for the plants of the National Thermal Power Corporation, as the off peak demand is mostly met by the state power utilities.
But a stumbling block is the lack of a national electricity grid. “Its absence is the main problem in the implementation of this project,� a state power department official said.