Power position in Punjab, Haryana worsens
July 22, 2012 03:17 PM
By Vinod Gupta
CHANDIGARH: Power position in Punjab and Haryana has worsened following closure of 8 thermal units. Haryana is hit more due to state’s own generation being reduced to 1000 MW only.

On Saturday evening the only running unit at Khedar and Jhajjar thermal plant tripped plunging the state in to grave power crisis. There was boiler leakage in 600 MW Khedar unit and 660 MW jhajjar unit was closed due to coal handling problems. It may be mentioned that second units at these plants are under forced outage for the last few months due to turbine problem and coal shortage respectively.

Unit 4 of panipat thermal was closed yesterday late evening following boiler leakage. Today morning unit 1 was also shut down . The two Yamuna Nagar units are not expected to revive before November.

Two units at Panipat went down subsequently and the power availability from own sources is about 1018 MW. The power demand is more than 1450 lac units and power shortage is more than 225 lac units. The evening peak load is 6200 MW .

According to official sources the power position may ease in next week. The officials expect both units of Khedar to resume generation next week. It has been claimed that the turbine blades of unit 1 has been repaired by the Chinese team. With the commissioning of units the unscheduled cuts are expected to reduce.

The closure one Ropar thermal unit in adjoining Punjab has also increased power cuts intensity there. The power shortage is around 300 lac units whereas power demand exceeds 2100 lac units daily .The thermal generation in state is around 1992 MW with total generation of 2734 MW.