State told to cut power overdrawals
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Panipat, June 6
The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has issued directions to Haryana to restrict overdrawals from the northern grid and ensure that there is no violation of regulations.

These directions were issued after Power System Operation Corporation Ltd filed an interlocutory application before the CERC listing the instances of heavy overdrawals by constituents from the northern grid. This application listed that Haryana had been overdrawing 90 lakh units daily on an average since May.

The state had to resort to heavy overdrawals to tide over the power shortage due to closure of three thermal units on a long-term basis.

The overdrawals by the state amounts to 375 MW round the clock while the maximum overdrawals during a week allowed by the CERC is 165 lakh units.

The overdrawals of power by Haryana in the first week of May was 576.68 lakh units at a cost of Rs 1,745.84 lakh, which works out to be Rs 3.03 per unit. This included a penalty of Rs 40.74 lakh for drawing power at prohibitive frequency.

The overdrawals in the next week was 819.48 lakh units at a cost of Rs 2791.74 lakh and the average cost was Rs 3.41 per unit. The penalty for overdrawing at a low frequency was Rs 61.88 lakh.

A senior HPGCL engineer said the power utility was also incurring additional charges of about Rs 1 per unit due to the forced outage of the thermal units in the state.

Meanwhile, sources in the power utilities stated that even after getting the CERC directives, the state continued to overdraw from the grid. On Monday and Tuesday, the state drew 94 lakh units daily while on May 25, the state had drawn more than 173 lakh units in a single day.

The power demand in the state is more than 1,200 lakh units and the shortage is around 200 lakh units a day. The main reason for the overdrawal is forced closure of three units with a total generation capacity of 1,200 MW due to turbine problems.

These include the 600-MW unit at Khedar, which is down since April 28 due to damage to the turbine blade and the two 300-MW capacity units each in the Yamunanagar thermal power plant, which are also down due to turbine problems. The rotor of unit 2 is undergoing balancing at Mumbai and the unit has been scheduled to commission by October 30. For the other unit, no decision had been taken as yet.

More overdrawl attracts penalty

The overdrawal by the state amounts to 375 MW round the clock while the maximum overdrawal during a week allowed by the CERC is 165 lakh units. The overdrawal of power by Haryana in the first week of May was 576.68 lakh units at a cost of Rs 1,745.84 lakh, which works out to be Rs 3.03 per unit. This included a penalty of Rs 40.74 lakh for drawing power at prohibitive frequency. The overdrawal in the next week was 819.48 lakh units at a cost of Rs 2791.74 lakh and the average cost was Rs 3.41 per unit. The penalty for overdrawing at a low frequency was Rs 61.88 lakh.