Acute power shortage would hit Haryana hard in summers
V K Gupta

02 March, 2012

Residents and farmers need to brace for a major power shortage as the generation of the state has come down heavily due to faulty equipments and service issues of various thermal plants. Over drawl from Northern grid seems to be the only alternative till the state fixes its units.

POWER PURCHASE and over drawl from northern grid are the only alternatives available in Haryana to bridge the gap between power supply and demand. Today the generation from states own resources is a meagre 986 MW against total capacity of 3230 MW.

Three thermal units with capacity of 920 MW are under maintenance and other three units having capacity of 1220 MW are under forced shut down. The 600 MW unit no. 1 at Khedar, 300MW unit no.2 at Yamuna Nagar and 210 MW unit no. 5 at Panipat and 110 MW unit no. 4 are under forced shut down.

The state is over drawing from the grid even in these lean periods due to forced outages of units. The unit no. 2 at Yamuna Nagar will take few more months before it is available. During coming paddy season and summer the non- availability of unit may pose a serious problem to the residents and farmers. The power demand in state these days is over 1000 Lakh units and it increases by more than 50 % in paddy season.

As per CEA report the overall power shortage will be 6 % and during peak hours the shortage is 6.9%. During peak hours, power availability will be 6050 MW against demand of 6500 MW. The power available in year is around 33777 million units against demand of 35929 million units.

At present, HPGCL has a total generating capacity of 4390.50 MW of thermal and hydel stations. These include 1367.8 MW at Panipat Thermal Power Station, two units of 300 MW each at Yamuna Nagar and two units of 600 MW each at Khedar.

Haryana gets 1939 MW from central sector projects. This includes 1321 MW of firm share in central sector projects. In addition to this, 431 MW from unallocated power is being given to state.

3X500 MW Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project, Jhajjar being executed by NTPC, is a joint venture of NTPC Delhi and Haryana. Haryana’s share in this project is 750 MW. 1320 MW Mahatma Gandhi Thermal Power Project in Jhajjar is a tariff based project being set up by China Light Power Company and 85 % of power generated will be given to Haryana. The unit was commissioned in January but now it at stand still due to non- availability of coal.

Besides above 1500 MW Gas based Project at Faridabad and 660 MW capacities additional super critical Thermal Unit at Yamuna Nagar has also been planned. 2800 MW (4x700 MW) Nuclear Power Plant in Fatehabad has also been approved.