Yogindra Mohan

Patiala

Punjab has been a known aggressive power purchase in the country and it leads all the states with a big margin. Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) in its tariff order had approved purchase proposal of Rs 5,717 crore for the year 2012-13. State has already purchased power worth Rs 5,400 crore and this year the power purchase bill is likely to cross the figure of Rs 7,000 crore.

Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) had claimed at the start of this financial year that there will be no power cuts because of power shortage as they have made elaborate arrangements for the summer by purchasing over 2000 MW power. Factors like breakdown or load can affect the supply, not shortage as PSPCL is purchasing Rs 6,500 crore worth of power this fiscal.

The assessment of the PSPCL went haywire when the power demand rose beyond their expectations and to make the power situation worse monsoon got delayed and then came the prediction of poor monsoon. Punjab has been making short term purchase to bridge the gap between demand and supply.

Even in the last 10 days period from July 24 to August 2 the average daily power purchase is 534 lakh units. During this period there were two grid failures. On an average Punjab surrendered 31 lakh units daily its scheduled share of power from grid.

This included power purchase through traders, under banking arrangements directly or through traders and from power exchanges. Under banking arrangement the PSPCL purchased directly about 96.6 lakh units daily and about 54 lakh units through traders. Power purchase through traders was about 323 lakh units daily and varied between 303 to 365 lakh units. The power purchase from power exchanges varied between 30 to 105 lakh units with the average of 58 lakh units. The average power purchase cost through power exchanges in the last 10 days works out to Rs 5.50 per unit.

Punjab had been making power purchases through eight traders and major traders are Power Trading Corporation (about 24.32 per cent),Adani (11.12 per cent) and Adani Power (about 12.19 per cent).The additional power is being arranged from 13 generating stations.

It may be mentioned that the PSPCL had signed short-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with different firms to supply eight-hour

power to agricultural pump sets during the paddy

season this year. The total power to be purchased

for the paddy season would be around 3,200 million units (MUs) at Rs 4 per unit.
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