Cea Cuts Capacity Need To 1 Lakh Mw

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) which had earlier forecast a power generating capacity requirement of 1.5 lakh mw by 2015, hopes that the requirement can be slashed to 1 lakh mw.

CEA chairman R N Srivastava has said that the huge reduction in the projected capacity would be possible by building the national power grid with adequate power transfer facility between the region. Second, the capacity utilisation of the existing power plants must improve their efficiency.

Third, the current level of transmission and distribution loss must be brought down.

These three measures together will be adequate to restrict the need for generating capacity addition within one lakh mw by 2015.

 

However, even this will mean more than doubling the present generating capacity of around 97,000 mw.

However, the reduced capacity addition target sounds much more than achievable. Instead of the need to add 10,000 mw a year, it will be just over 6,500 mw a year on an average in the next 15 years.

The resultant sharp fall in fund requirement will make the programme more realistic. Finally, all these measures will make power more affordable in India.

The capacity addition even at the reduced rate will ensure raising the per capita power consumption to 700-800 units a year from the present level of a little over 350 units a year.

The government, he said, has not set any target of the optimum level of per capita power consumption for the future. However, the higher the consumption, the better will be the standard of living. There is currently lot of imbalance in the per capita power consumption as it varies from less than 100 units to over 500 units.

The concept of village electrification has also undergone an important change in recent years. Earlier, just electric connection for any consumer (domestic, or agricultural) was enough to list the villages as electrified. Under the new guideline, at least one household must have electric connection to call the villages electrified.

All the five electrical regions in India now have some transmission links for transfer of surplus power to deficit regions. The capacity is about 500 mw between some regions, but much less for others. The power transfer capacity is being raised to 1,000 mw in the next few years.

The national grid will be at place by 2012 for adequate transfer of power, he hoped. It is difficult, he said, to decide what should be the optimum power transfer capacity between the regions. But, the capacity has to ensure that all the potential surplus in one region can be fully utilised through transfer of power.

In future, said Srivastava, the efficiency of a power plant will be gauged by the capacity availability, and not by the present practice of the plant load factor. The availability factor should be over 80 per cent.