Power situation set to improve

Reservoir levels rising, but storage below average

Power availability in the country is likely to improve in the coming days, as water levels in various reservoirs have started going up following the resumption of monsoon.

According to the latest data obtained from the Central Water Commission (CWC), water storage at the 81 reservoirs across the country was 14 per cent of the total capacity of 151 billion cubic metres (bcm) of the reservoirs. It had risen to 11 per cent of the total capacity last week.

Accordingly, daily hydro power generation in the country has also increased by at least 12 per cent in the past one month to around 310 million units currently. Daily generation from NHPC Ltd, the country’s largest hydro power producer, alone has gone up by 11 per cent to 75 million units now as compared to last month.

Similarly, keeping pace with this improving hydro power situation, the average price of power traded in the market has also started coming back to normal levels.

The latest data compiled by the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) show the average price of electricity traded on it so far in the current month has slumped to Rs 4.89 per kilowatt hour (one kilo watt hour is one unit). Power was traded over 20 per cent higher at an average of Rs 6.19 per kilowatt hour last month when the reservoir levels were drying up as a result of delayed monsoon.

“Prices will definitely go down further, going by the rate at which power is flowing in at the exchange,” said a senior official from the IEX, India’s first power exchange.
 

STORAGE LEVELS
Major reservoirs	Storage level*

Avg for 10 yrs 20082009 Gobind Sagar (HP)601939 Thein (Punjab)592533 Maithon (Jharkhand)911266 Upper Kolab (Orissa)4223 Gumti (Tripura)413243 Koyana (Maharashtra)403149 Pench (Maharashtra)12212 Nagarjuna Sagar (Andhra)451525 Mettur (Tamil Nadu)372840 * Storage as a per cent of live capacity at full reservoir level
Source: Central Water Commission

Total power traded at the IEX has increased by over 25 per cent from 324 million units in May to 408 million units traded in the current month.

IEX alone accounts for more than 90 per cent of the electricity traded at the two power exchanges in the country.

The moderation in power prices due to resuming monsoon is set to reduce the subsidy burden of states which otherwise have to procure power at a high cost to tide over the electricity crisis.

The downward spiral in the prices could also impact profit margins of merchant power generators as they account for a major chunk of the power traded at the exchange and earn profits in the lean period.

Heat wave in the northern region and a delayed monsoon had pushed up the peak demand for power to over 111,000 Mw in April-June period this year, around 5,000 Mw higher as compared to the same period last year. This increased demand had pushed up the prices of power traded at the exchange to as high as Rs 12 per unit.

Last month, Power Secretary HS Brahma had warned that if the problem of a dry spell continued for 15-20 days, hydel projects in the northern and eastern parts of the country could be affected. This has, however, been averted.

The water storage in the eastern reservoirs, such as the Maithon used by Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), has increased from less than 25 per cent of the average last month to over 66 per cent currently. Similarly, in the Upper Kolab dam in Orissa, the storage level which was at one-sixth of the decade average last month has gone up to a fourth now.

However, the current level of overall 14 per cent water storage in the reservoirs — 20 billion cubic metres — is exactly a half of the last year’s average water storage of 28 per cent, according to the CWC data. Also, the current storage has been found to be a fourth of the average storage level for last 10 years in the country.

Hydro power accounts for around 25 per cent — 35,000 Mw — of the overall installed power generation capacity of 145,000 Mw in India.