State plans 5,000 Mw gas power plants

Tadadi to have the first project of 2,100 Mw

The government of Karnataka is planning to set up gas-based power plants to generate close to 5,000 Mw of power in an effort to plug the supply demand deficit.

Senior government officials in the Energy Department confirmed these plans and added that they are scouting for land in Tumkur, Davangere and Gulbarga districts in addition to setting up a 2,000 Mw combined cycle power plant at Bidadi near Bangalore. According to industry estimates, the gas-based power projects will require an investment in the range of Rs 13,000 crore, little over half of what coal-based power project requires.

“The state government is in discussion with the Gas Authority of India Limited to source the gas for these projects and hopefully, we should see some concrete steps for these plans to move from the planning stage,” a senior energy department official detailed.

These steps to increase power generation in the state are part of the state’s long term agenda to plug the 26.5 per cent peak demand-supply gap. In addition to initiating a string of pacts with the public and private players to step up generating capacity in state, Karnataka has also requested the Centre for increase of 1,000 Mw in its share from central generating stations from the allocation of 1,534 Mw.

Karnataka has a total installed capacity of 9,559 Mw and the average availability is about 5,953 Mw. The average daily consumption is 115 MU and the energy shortage is 13.7 per cent. “While the load growth is about 9-10 per cent annually, consumer growth is 6 per cent, while distribution losses is at 20.6 per cent, the transmission loss is 4.31 per cent,” the official detailed. As a result of these, the electricity supply companies are in severe financial crunch and the capital expenditure programmes for 2009-10 is near the Rs 3,000 crore mark.