Bengal govt plans to add 2000MW in 5 yrs

West Bengal, a power surplus state, was planning to add 2000MW over the next five years, state Power Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said.

The old thermal units in the state would be gradually replaced by modern plants, Chattopadhyay said at the CII organised Energy Conclave 2018 here.

"We have about 9000MW generation capacity of our own and about 1000MW from central allocation. We will add another 2000MW in the next five years," he said.

It will include 1000MW of pump storage power and 300MW of solar, Chattopadhyay said adding that the pump storage project was waiting to get central assistance.

"When we came to power (in 2011), solar capacity was merely at 1 MW and now, the solar capacity is around 200 MW. At least 300 MW of solar capacity will be added in the next five years. Of this, around 20 solar projects with 10 MW of each will be coming up in the next three years," he said.

The minister said the state government has been introducing latest technologies to reduce transmission and distribution losses and at the same time putting efforts to improve quality of power.

The number of electricity consumers in both industrial and domestic sectors has increased in West Bengal, Chattopadhyay said at another programme earlier in the day.

The number of industrial consumers has gone up from 78,074 in 2011 to 99,505 now, proving that demand for power from industries has increased, he said.

Following the 'Power to Everyone' slogan coined by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after coming to power in 2011, the number of domestic consumers of power (domestic) has also increased to 1.2 crore from 86 lakh in 2011, he said.

"We can now say that with regards to infrastructure - roads, technical institutions, power - Bengal is ready to extend all help to industry houses," Chattopadhyay said at a programme of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BNCCI).

On the sidelines of the