Karnataka - Bangalore   

Thermal power production cost to go up marginally

BANGALORE: The move to regulate and index the prices of coal by the Indonesian government is likely to marginally push up the cost of generation of thermal power in the State.

According to Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd. Managing Director S.M. Jaamdar, the increase in the cost of imported coal may be felt in about three months. “The KPCL is allowed to directly pass on any increase in generation cost, owing to the increase in coal costs, to the Escoms who buy power from it,” he said. However, the impact of increase in coal costs would be negligible as the KPCL imports only 10 lakh tonnes of coal from Indonesia out of its total coal consumption of 80 lakh tonnes a year.

Power experts maintain that power consumers may be safe for the time being as the Escoms cannot directly pass on to them any increase in cost without taking permission from the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Old for new?

Mr. Jaamdar told presspersons that the KPCL is considering a proposal for replacing the over-aged Unit I & II of the Raichur Thermal Power Station with a super critical thermal generating unit with a capacity of 660 or 800 MW. A decision on whether to renovate and modernise these two units or replace them with a new unit will be taken soon. Referring to the frequent technical snags suffered by Unit I & II of the RTPS, he said such snags are bound to surface as the units had already completed their life span of 25 years. They were generating only about 150 MW of power against their total potential of 210 MW each. The renovation and modernisation of these units would cost around Rs. 200 crore each, and the units would have to stop generation for about two years. But the KPCL had put off any decision in this regard as the State would lose about 7.5 million units of energy a year if the generation by these two units was stopped.

Cutting losses

Mr. Jaamdar alleged that the coal wash contract awarded by the KPCL for six years from 2001 to three private firms from north India had caused a loss of Rs. 3,000 crore to the corporation. After stopping the coal-wash, the thermal power generation cost had reduced by 14 paise a unit, he said.

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