Power crises looms over Punjab; 4 units of state’s private plant shut down; PSPCL forced to purchase power from open market
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ July 3,2023
With the outage of all the three units of Punjab’s largest private plant situated at Banawala in Mansa district and one out of two units of another private plant situated in Tarn Taran district, the dependency of Punjab state power corporation limited (PSPCL) on central pool, increased. Today, PSPCL is drawing around 10,000 MW from the central pool.
“In this scenario, PSPCL has to purchase the power from the open market at different rates, putting extra burden on state exchequer. On Sunday, July 2,2023, PSPCL had purchased a whooping 350 lakh units from the open market. Moreover there is no provision of charging any penalty from the defaulter plant for not supplying power to the state , during peak season” said an officer on the condition of anonymity.
As per available information, all the three units of 660 MW each of Punjab’s biggest private thermal plant in Mansa district are not working due to technical snag. One unit of 270 MW of Tarn Taran based private Thermal plant is also not in a running condition.
As per the spokesperson of Mansa based thermal plant, “one of the 660 MW will be functional by today evening itself. On the remaining two units of 660 MW each will be functional at the earliest as our whole technical team is working hard to fix the technical snag at the earliest ‘.
The total installed capacity of three private power plants is 3920 MW. Out of these 3920,today, all three combined private power plants are generating less than half the generating capacity. They are generating 1567 MWs only. Rajpura based private thermal plant is the only one who is running on full capacity. Out of these 1567 MWs, Rajpura based thermal plant’s contribution is 1342 MW.
Whereas the state owned thermal plants- GGSSTP Ropar have a generating capacity of 840 MW (4units of 210 MW each) and GHTP Lehra Mohabbat have 920 MW (2 units of 210 MW each and 2 units of 250 MW each) are generating 1273 MW. 1116 MW is being generated by the state hydro projects.
With hot and humid weather and 8 hour power supply for the agriculture sector, Punjab State Power Corporation Limited is working overnight. The state demand is already touching 14000 plus MW daily and the powercom is meeting the same. Today, State is generating around 4500 MW from all sources.
Monsoon is also saving the PSPCL from backlash.
PSPCL is shelling extra money to purchase extra power in this scenario. With the shortage of IPPs generation, the financial burden came on Punjab state power corporation limited.
Power crises looms over Punjab; 4 units of state’s private plant shut down; PSPCL forced to purchase power from open market. How much money the powercom is forced to spent and how many units Punjab has to purchased today to meet the rising power demand in the state, is not immediately known.
Power pang-3 units of state’s private plant shut down; dependency on central pool increased
