Orissa, reeling under acute shortage of power, has resorted to overdrawal of power from the eastern region load despatch centre (ERLDC) to tide over the crisis.

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The state, sources said, was forced to overdraw about 500 Mw yesterday from ERLDC as it failed to get additional 270 Mw power promised by the state owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) due to technical problems.

Sources said, though there was overdrawal of 500 Mw from ERLDC, the state will not be required to pay any penalty on this. It may be noted, the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd is supplying about 40 to 50 Mw to the state regularly from 27 June from its un-allocated share. This power is made available during 6 pm to 10 pm.

“Due to some technical reasons NTPC couldn’t supply the promised 270 Mw power to the state directly. However, we are overdrawing about 500 Mw from ERLDC and the situation has improved”, a senior official of the state energy department said.

Meanwhile, the power situation is expected to improve further with the availability of 160 Mw from the second unit of the NTPC unit located at Kaniha, near Talcher from today. This will ease the task of state officials who are having a tough time in managing the situation, sources added.

While the peak demand of power in the state ranges from 2400 Mw to 2500 Mw in the morning, it goes up to 2800 Mw in the evening. The deficit in the morning is about 240 Mw, increasing up to 600-700 Mw during the evening hours. As a strategic move, Grid Corporation of Orissa (Gridco) is drawing more power from ERLDC in the morning when the frequency is good and the rate is comparatively cheaper while keeping the state’s own hydro electricity generation at its minimum. At 11am today, against the scheduled drawal of 770 Mw from the central pool, the actual drawal was higher by 490 Mw at 1260 Mw. The hydro-power generation at 11am was at 60 Mw which is likely to be increased to 350 Mw in the evening.

Besides, the captive generation plants (CGPs) injected 220 mw to the state grid during the day. However, there was no injection of power to the state grid from the CGP of Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL) at Jharsuguda.

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