State to add 4,500 Mw to meet shortage

POWER SCENARIO IN THE NORTH: PUNJAB

Driven by the demand from industry and agriculture, Punjab plans to add 4,500 Mw power in next 4-5 years. The state has the highest per capita consumption of power in the country at 972 units, much more than the national average of 700 units.

In other words, the state’s present demand is 9,000 Mw, against its total generation capacity of 6,200 Mw.

It is worth noting that power shortage in the state is growing at a rate of 10 per cent per annum. Further in order to meet the demand, in the last fiscal year (2007-08), the state had bought power worth Rs 6,000 crore from other states at Rs 6-10 per unit.

At present, daily power cuts at various places vary from about 30 minutes to 4 hours. The duration of outages is more especially in rural areas, as compared to urban and industrial areas.

Recently, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal laid the foundation stone of the 1,980-Mw Talwandi Sabo thermal plant, which is being constructed by the Mumbai-based Sterlite Energy Ltd, a company of the Vedanta group, on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis.

This apart, the government is in the process of finalising the player for the 1,200-Mw thermal plant at Rajpura.

Hyderabad-based Lanco Infratech Ltd has emerged as the sole bidder for the coal-based project.

Also in the pipeline is the stage-IV of 250-Mw Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant (GHTP), which is expected to be commissioned shortly. The construction work on the 5,409-Mw thermal project at Goindwal Sahib is also in the process.

Further, the state government recently announced that two more thermal plants, with a generation capacity of 3,000 Mw and 1,000 Mw each, would be set up at Gidderbaha and Mukerian, respectively. Apart from this, the state government is expected to get 5,175 Mw additional power from mega power projects coming up all over India.

At present, the state gets about 1917 Mw from various power projects of the central government. The state government is also contemplating the idea of generating 1,000 Mw of power from co-generation and farm residue. The Punjab Energy Development Authority (PEDA) has already planned a total capacity addition of 1681 Mw through various new and renewable sources of energy.

Also, keeping in view the interest shown by the industrialists in the co-generation of power, the Punjab government has enhanced the target of co-generation for the next five years to 400 Mw against the designated target of 220 Mw.