Call to implement R&M in power plants

Speakers at the two-day Power Plant Summit-2005, which began here on Wednesday, have suggested optimal utilisation of capacity in the existing power plants to partly offset the supply-demand gap.

P K Basu, executive director of Calcutta Electricity Supply Company (CESC), in his opening remarks, said that an additional 90 billion units of power can be augmented from the existing power plants if the renovation and maintenance (R&M) operations are implemented to enhance their capability for capacity utilisation.

"While each megawatt capacity requires more than Rs 4 crore investment for the new projects, it can be achieved by spending just Rs 1 crore in the existing plants where capacity utilisation has come down over a period of time," he said.

He also said that power plants need to achieve world standards to enable them to cut down costs. The other areas where the power utilities and power plants could bring down costs include reduction of T&D losses and auxiliary consumption of power.

According to Basu, investor's confidence in the Indian power sector has been restored with the introduction of a regulator and the new Electricity Act.