The Hindu : Front Page : Power woes continue, discoms pin hope on rain

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Saturday, Jul 08, 2006

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Power woes continue, discoms pin hope on rain

Staff Reporter

Discoms are sending SMS to consumers informing that two to four cuts of one hour each would be mandated

NEW DELHI: With there being no immediate respite from the power crisis in Delhi, the private distribution companies have now started sending SMSs to their consumers informing them that two to four cuts of one hour each would be mandated due to shortage of power supply. While on Thursday, when the peak demand stood at 3568 MW, the maximum load shedding was 694 MW, on Friday the situation was no better despite the peak demand dropping to 3,406 MW as closure of six units of Nathpa Jhakri plant due to high silting made its impact on Delhi.

What is also making matters look worse is the fact that Delhi is already overdrawing substantially from the Northern Grid. On Thursday, Delhi met a maximum demand of 3,511 MW at 7 p.m. by overdrawing as much as 301 MW from the grid.

With its own generating units faring badly due to both planned and forced outages, officials insist there is nothing but rain which can provide succour to Delhi. On Friday, the forced outages reached a high of 389 MW as six units of 57 MW each Nathpa Jhakri had to shut down due to high silting and one unit of 47 MW of Gas Turbine was also not operational.

To add to this, the planned outages were of the order of 463 MW and these included a 210 MW unit of Badarpur Thermal Power Station which had suffered hydrogen coolant leakage earlier this week, and a 67.5 MW unit of Rihand Power House and a 44 MW unit of Singrauli which have been lying closed due to overhauling.Meanwhile, power cuts continued for four to six hours in most parts of the Capital on Friday as the supply was about 20 per cent short of the demand levels.

In many of the areas the water supply has also been affected by the power cuts.

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