The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Overdrawals from southern grid mount to 718 MW

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 27, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Overdrawals from southern grid mount to 718 MW

Special Correspondent

Collapse of transmission towers, outages at two stations; normalcy likely to be restored today

HYDERABAD: With an installed capacity of 1,000 MW going out of generation, the State has resorted to overdrawal of 718 MW from the southern grid to cope with the artificial shortage.

Transco is paying Rs 4.03 per unit on the overdrawals, as the "availability tariff" is in force all over the country, which is collected on such drawals as per the frequency of the regional grid.

This type of tariff was introduced to discourage states from overloading the systems with overdrawals, which normally lead to tripping.

Power cut

Out of the 1,000 MW lost, 663 MW of installed capacity was from Kothagudem complex which, though available, could not be utilised due to evacuation problem following collapse of transmission towers at Budidampadu recently, 210 MW from the Vijayawada Thermal Power Station which went on outage, and 120 MW from Talcher station which was also on outage.

The cumulative impact of all this was power load relief of 4.5 million units per day with the power cut lasting for more than six hours at some places. Transco supplied 142 million units on Wednesday when the demand was 146 mu. Despite having an installed capacity of nearly 11,000 MW, the State is hardly using 6,000 MW out of this.

A part of the capacity is under hydel sources and major ones among them have stopped generation, following depletion of reservoirs.

The water levels in Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar have gone down to 795 ft and 505 ft, against 800 ft and 510 ft, the minimum levels required for their hydel stations to operate.

Major snag

Power supply in the State has been affected following two major instances of collapse of transmission towers, seven at Budidampadu in Khammam district and one yesterday in Adilabad district, all due to strong gales.

Inspection

A Transco inspection team found that smaller towers of 33-KV capacity got uprooted for a stretch of 1km near Nirmal ruling out supply to Adilabad and other towns through alternative routes on Wednesday night.

Re-erection

The Transco transmission director, G. Kesava Rao, told The Hindu here on Thursday that normalcy would return on Friday when the 220-KV lines at Budidampadu would be charged after completion of the re-erection of the collapsed towers. Supply had already been restored in Adilabad district.

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