The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : TNEB confident of maintaining supply despite NLC strike

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 06, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

TNEB confident of maintaining supply despite NLC strike

T. Ramakrishnan

It has drawn up a strategy for drawing power from other sources

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board is confident of maintaining "load shedding-free" power supply in the coming days, in spite of the strike by Neyveli Lignite Corporation employees.

NLC, on an average, contributes 1,000 MW to the State. Following the strike, this is not available. To offset this, the Electricity Board has drawn up a strategy to draw power from different sources.

It is now getting 480 MW from gas turbine power plants at Pillaiperumalnallur in Nagapattinam district (operated by an independent power producer) and Kayamkulam in Kerala (operated by the National Thermal Power Corporation). The Board had not been tapping this source much in view of "high cost," say official sources.

With southwest monsoon gaining intensity, wind energy is available aplenty. About 1,000 MW of wind power is being drawn. A senior official says had the strike taken place in April, this source would not have been available. The installed capacity of windmills in the State is around 2,800 MW.

The Board is drawing power optimally from plants run by IPPs at Basin Bridge, Samyanallur and Samalpatti, accounting for about 400 MW.

In view of the heavy rain in catchment areas in the Nilgiris district, hydro power stations on Wednesday recorded an inflow equivalent to 124 million units. The same day last year, the stations registered an inflow of 70 MU. The present storage of the reservoirs is 1,530 MU. A year ago, it was 800 MU.

Eastern and western regions in the country are providing 500 MW to the southern region, which was getting about 2,000 MW of power from Neyveli. Of this, Tamil Nadu gets 120 MW.

Strike or no strike, the power demand in the State hovers around 8,000 MW.

On Wednesday morning, the peak power demand was 7,960 MW and in the evening it was 7,850 MW.

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