The Hindu : Karnataka News : Power crisis deepens, loadshedding enforced

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Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Power crisis deepens, loadshedding enforced

B.S. Satish Kumar

BANGALORE: The power shortage assumed crisis proportions in Karnataka on Monday. Depletion of storage at hydel resources and technical snag at a generating unit at the Raichur Thermal Power Station have aggravated the problem.

The power utilities resorted to unscheduled loadshedding throughout the State, including Bangalore, to make up for the power shortage. Many areas in Bangalore faced loadshedding varying from 90 minutes to two hours during peak demand while the loadshedding was even more in the remaining parts of the State.

The State is already facing shortage because of the weakening south-west monsoon resulting in depletion of hydel resources. The problem became intense with two units of the RTPS with a capacity of 210 MW each stopping generation in the last two days. Of these, one unit was restarted on Monday. Generation by one more unit in the RTPS has been stopped as the unit has been taken up for annual maintenance.

Normally, the inflows to the hydel reservoirs in the State start in June. But the catchment areas are yet to receive good rainfall although more than a month has passed since the monsoon set in. The storage in the three major hydel resources of the State is stated to be too low when compared with that of the last year. Linganamakki reservoir has a storage of only 19.47 per cent of its capacity as against 62.41 per cent during the same time last year.

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