Sanjeev Kumar Patro

Bhubaneswar: Odisha seems to be grappling with a power crisis of sorts. In order to avoid load shedding, the State is making overdrawals from Inter-State Generating Stations (ISGS) under the central sector.

As per data available with the SLDC (State Load Dispatch Center), yesterday (August 8) the State has made an overdrawal of 4 million units (MU) of energy to meet the energy demand in the State.

The SLDC data shows when Odisha has a scheduled drawal limit of 51.71 MU from ISGS for yesterday, the actual drawal stood at 55.83 MU. It further added that when the energy requirement stood at 82.55MU, the availability was 71.84 MU.

The peak demand at evening (7PM) yesterday was 4,238MW and the off-peak demand at 2 PM was 3,372 MW. The State's maximum demand yesterday touched 4,314 MW at 10:30PM, revealed the SLDC status report for yesterday.

Significantly,  the State's power generating stations, including Captive power plants generation, could contribute 1,140 MW for the peak demand and 879 MW for off-peak demand. So, in order to meet the peak and off-peak demand, Odisha is heavily making overdrawals from the ISGS, informed a top official at SLDC here.

Though the State has an installed capacity of 11, 709 MW, there has been nil generation from Sterlite (2400MW). Also, the Talcher thermal power station is operating below its potential generation now, suggest reports.

The hydel power plants in State are also not operating at their optimum level. Indravati and Chiplima hydel power plant generation for both peak and off-peak has been nil yesterday.

The State seems to be making up such shortfall by importing power from captive power plants. On August 8, the CPP contribution to peak demand was 399 MW and for off-peak the contribution was 358 MW.

Significantly, the installed capacity of CPPs in Odisha has been a staggering 5,523 MW. Since the power imported from CPPs are costlier, and as  State government imports very limited power from CPPs, many CPPs are not operational now in Odisha.

As per power experts, when Odisha thermal power generation (peak + Off-peak) has been mere 18 per cent of installed capacity on August 8, the generation of West Bengal thermal plants has been 65 per cent of the installed capacity.

Similarly, the hydel generation to total installed capacity in Odisha yesterday was mere 25 per cent; whereas the proportion was nearly 74 per cent in West Bengal.

The State energy department here attribute the dip in power generation to crisis in coal supply to thermal power plants and lower water level in reservoirs.

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