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Sunday, Oct 14, 2007
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TNEB turns to three States for power

T. Ramakrishnan

West Bengal, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh agree to help the State

CHENNAI: Hit by the sudden loss of wind energy, the State’s power managers have turned to other States such as West Bengal, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh to tide over the situation.

The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) expects to get 300 to 400 MW from the three States, which have agreed to help Tamil Nadu. This morning, the TNEB received 240 MW from West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, according to an official.

The loss of wind energy came at a time when some thermal units were under statutory maintenance work. Normally, maintenance work is undertaken during this part of the year as the demand is expected to be less.

But the power managers did not take into account the change in wind pattern because wind energy is usually available till October-end.

Until Monday, wind energy was providing about 1,000 MW. But with the change in the wind pattern, power production by wind mills had drastically come down.

On October 8, the share of wind energy was 1,002 MW in the evening peak-hour period. Four days later, it was 19 MW in the morning peak-hour period.

The cumulative effect of the developments is that there have been interruptions in the power supply in different parts of the State. [On an average, the State’s demand is in the range of 8,000-8,500 MW]

Referring to Electricity Minister Arcot N. Veeraswami’s assurance in Srivilliputhur on Friday that normality would be restored in a few days, the official said that one unit of the North Chennai thermal power station was expected to resume operations by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Once Kerala too started supplying power to Tamil Nadu, the pressure on the authorities would be lessened.

The officials are maximising generation of power from the TNEB’s hydro stations, which contribute about 1,000 MW.

On Friday, the stations generated about 1,260 MW.

A senior meteorologist says that in the last three-four days, a dramatic change in the wind pattern occurred. Westerlies have weakened and easterlies are gradually setting in.

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