Electricity

"To meet the power shortfall we have to purchase power from outside for the state grid. Even then the power shortfall is likely to go up by 300 MW to 350 MW," Chief Secretary Asok Mohan Chakraborty told reporters.

Stating that irregular supply of coal was responsible for the position, Chakraborty said the administration was having talks with the Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) to regularise the supply of quality coal for running the power plants.

"It will take two to three days to regularise coal supply," Chakraborty said.

Chakraborty said that he hoped that the Purulia Pump Storage would contribute to the state power grid.

West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation Ltd (WBGEDCL) managing director SP Gon Chowdhury, on the sidelines of a seminar on climate change, said that West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan have asked MNRE to allot 345-mw solar power projects to these states, taking a major share of the 1,300-mw solar power capacity addition by 2013.

Earlier, MNRE minister Farooq Abdullah said the government in the first phase of National Solar Mission's implementation would target to add 1300 mw by 2013 of the total targeted solar power generation of 20,000 by 2022. The government would decide on the next phases after reviewing the achievements in the first phase.

While West Bengal has pitched for an allocation of 115 mw of solar power, Gujarat has pitched for 130 mw and Rajasthan for 100 mw. The rest of the 25 states and seven union territories would be allotted projects adding up to a generation of 955 mw. "The MNRE ministry is shortly expected to allot these projects and come out with a tariff structure on January 11," Gon Chowdhury said. "We expect the generation tariff to be anything between Rs 15 and Rs 17 per unit," he said. The MNRE tariff is Rs 15 per unit at present. Since the Centre will buy the entire generated power and converge state and central tariff, it is for the MNRE to decide which state will be asked to generate how much.

Gon Chowdhury said power major NTPC Ltd would float a company, NTPC Bidyut Vapyar Nigam Ltd, which would buy the entire solar power generated and push to the grid.

The country's first private solar power producer is eyeing a capacity of 100MW by 2013 that will require an investment of $300-400 million.

The company had built a 2MW unit spread over 13 acres at Punjab's Awan village in six months.

"We plan to set up a 2MW plant in Purulia and will scale it up to 40MW in the next five years," Inderpreet Wadhwa, founder and CEO of Azure Power, told The Telegraph.

The project will come up in an area that is deficient in power, Wadhwa said. The plant will cover around 80 per cent of the local substation area and help the region through the local grid. Azure plans to focus on rural and semi-urban areas that might be ignored by large projects.

Wadhwa said the firm would be raising around $10 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for upcoming projects in Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat. Projects of up to 22MW are under development; talks are on for another 30MW.

Source: The Telegraph Azure Power to set up unit in Purulia

Although WBSEDCL has spent about Rs 300 crore to set up five sub-stations at Rajarhat, Sodepur, Subhasgram, Singur and Kolkata West International City, it is unable to operationalise these as the transmission lines for servicing the facilities haven't been installed yet. The reason for this is the unavailability of the 250 sq meter plots required for setting up each transmission tower.

Since the existing transmission lines are of a certain capacity, even if additional power is available, it cannot be transferred through the available infrastructure. Consequently, when Kolkata's consumption will peak in the summer, WBSEDCL will not be able to help the CESC.

"Presently, we have to lower the voltage of the electricity being transferred in order to serve a larger area. We can only reduce voltage to a certain extent. Unless we are able to get the transmission towers for the five sub-stations, there could be forced load-shedding during the summer," WBSEDCL Chairman & Managing Director Malay De said today on the sidelines of a CII exposition.

While Kolkata's average daily power consumption is pegged at 1500MW, CESC procures between 500-600MW from the WBSEDCL to meet the shortfall during the summer. However, if the average increase of consumption is factored in, the city could be short of about 50-100 MW during the coming summer, according to De. "There could be an impact in the summer. We are facing a similar problem of transmission for getting power from Budge Budge to our Eastern Metropolitan sub-station," CESC Executive Director (Distribution) SS Sinha said.

Unlike the last revision, there will be no power subsidy from the government for both utilities, which means the consumer will have to bear the full brunt of the interim hike.

The WBERC has hiked CESC's average tariff by 48 paise per unit and WBSEDCL's average tariff by 78 paise per unit. Following the hike, CESC's average tariff stands at Rs 4.57 per unit while in WBSEDCL's case, it is Rs 4.27 per unit. It was announced as an interim hike on account of rise in coal prices.

 When contacted, West Bengal power minister Mrinal Banerjee told ET: "We will not pay additional subsidy to consumers to absorb the hike. This latest tariff revision is to accommodate an interim hike in fuel prices. There will be no extra subsidy to shield CESC and WBSEDCL consumers from the tariff hike."

West Bengal, which in Census 2001 was seventh from the bottom in the pecking order of power penetration in rural homes, has launched a Rs3,300 crore programme to build infrastructure to distribute power to six million more village households by March 2011.

The state-run West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd (WBSEDCL) supplies power now to some five million rural consumers, or around 45% of rural homes in the state.

Implementation of West Bengal’s 18-month rural electrification programme will result in 100% power penetration in rural households, but will increase average tariff by at least 20 paise a unit, or 1 kilowatt hour (kWh), according to Moloy De, WBSEDCL’s chairman and managing director.

Neither would WBSEDCL recover costs of distributing power to rural homes nor would it be able to increase the power tariff “by any significant margin” for rural consumers, he added.

Source: Live Mint Bengal launches rural electrification scheme

Kolkatans may well be in for a dark Diwali if the West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited (WBPDCL) fails to clear its dues to Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL).

WBPDCL owes ECL around Rs 142 crore, and unless the former pays the amount, ECL officials have said they may be forced to sell their coal to companies that can pay up. "Rs 142 crore is no small amount and they owe this for a long time. We have heard they are supposed to pay a part of it sometime next week," said Niladri Roy, General Manager of ECL. He added: "With the company owing us such a big amount, it becomes difficult for us to pay our employees and miners. Other coalfields pay their miners on the first of each month, but we cannot do so." The ECL officials claimed that in spite of the non-payment of dues, supply of coal to WBPDCL has not been stopped. It is even providing the rakes that WBPDCL has asked for.

WBPDCL officials said the reduced supply of coal from ECL was responsible for the shortage of power. "The supply had picked up during Durga Pujas and we were hoping that it would continue. But the supply has now dwindled and this is affecting generation.

We are capable of generating far more," said an official.

P K Chakrabarty, Director (HR) in WBPDCL, conceded that the company owed ECL a large amount. "But we do not think the amount is as high as Rs 142 crore. As soon as we get our payments we will pay up.

Source: The Indian Express Dark Diwali awaits Kolkata as power utility reels under debt

Coal shortage, snags at a couple of state-owned power plants and reduced imports saw the power situation deteriorating. In the city, CESC had to resort to rotational power cuts after West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (WBSEDCL) restricted supply. The city utility had sought 530 MW from the state sector on Wednesday. CESC met a demand of 1,421 MW with generation at its plant above the installed capacity. But with power supply from the state board restricted to 471 MW and CESC able to import a further 22 MW, it suffered a 90 MW shortfall.

Generation at West Bengal Power Development Corporation plants fell earlier in the day after a Kolaghat unit shut down.

The generation in those units could not be restored till evening. The CESC generates around 900 mw and it gets another 500 Mw from WBSEDCL. The state-run WBPDCL generates on an average 2100-2200 mw and it gets another 900 mw from the central agencies like NTPC.

Source: Business-standard Massive power cut hits Kolkata

"The project has become operational and power generated is being pumped into the grid. This is first grid connected venture so far," S Radhakrishnan, MD of the DPSC told PTI.

The plant, implemented in collaboration with DPSC and Green Energy Development Corporation, is expected to generate three million units of electricity a year and its annual revenue is pegged at Rs 4.8 crore.

The plant would help the West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC) earn a further 97 paise per unit through the sale of carbon credits that the project would accrue.

"We are buying solar power at Rs 5 a unit from the project for distribution as our commitment towards the environment," Radhakrishnan said.
It would prevent seven lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted a day by a 2-MW thermal project. The power from the solar plant would be fed into the DPSC's grid for distribution to customers in the Asansol-Raniganj belt.

"The project has become operational and power generated is is being pumped into the grid. This is first grid connected venture so far," DPSC MD S Radhakrishnan told PTI.

The plant, implemented in collaboration with DPSC and Green Energy Development Corporation, was expected to generate 3 million units of electricity a year.

It annual revenue was pegged at Rs 4.8 crore.

WBGEDC could earn a further 97 paise per unit through the sale of carbon credits that the project would accrue.

Radhakrishnan said, "We are buying solar power at Rs 5 a unit from the project for distribution as our commitment towards the environment" .

Though sharp showers during the day led to a dip in temperature and lowered power demand, it still crossed the 1,450-MW mark in the evening, triggering a massive shortfall. CESC supplied 892 MW from its own generating units and imported another 391 MW. But with state utility West Bengal State Electricity Development Corporation Ltd (WBSEDCL) restricting supplies to 353 MW, the crisis was unavoidable.

CESC officials said the situation was unlikely to improve till the third Budge Budge unit of 250 MW began generation sometime towards the end of next month. "We have to get the unit running before Pujas. Or, there will be a crisis during the festival," an official conceded.

The four 60-MW units at the Titagarh plant have been operating inconsistently in recent times, leading to a generation shortfall. CESC has been consistently facing a supply deficit situation with no major addition in capacity in the past several years even as demand went up by 5-7% each year.

He was speaking to reporters at the New Secretariat building today. Mr Deb has written to Trinamul Congress leader and railway minister Miss Mamata Banerjee. In his letter he mentioned that Trinamul supporters had put up party flags in different areas as a mark of protest against land acquisition at Beonta near Kolkata Leather Complex area. As a result, Hidco was unable to set up high tension towers in these areas, which are having to go without power.

Mr Deb sought the help of Miss Banerjee to sort the matter out immediately.

The minister, himself the chairman of Hidco, in his letter further added that around 1 lakh residents would be affected if the high tension towers were not set up there. The area houses many office buildings, but without power supply, the authorities of these offices were unable to operate.

Mr Deb, however, would also speak to Mr Sougata Roy, Union minister of state for urban development, in this connection. "Mr Sougato Roy would understand the problem as he is the minister of urban development. Huge number of people are coming to live in the city from village areas, so these kind of projects would help their accommodation," said Mr Deb. He has already spoken to some Trinamul Congress leaders, but he did not get any response from them in this regard.

"We are ready to offer our help to Miss Banerjee whenever she requires land in the Rajarhat areas for the Metro railway project. If Trinamul Congress supporters do not stop their movement, Rs 2,000 crore that has been invested here for setting up the New Town project would be wasted," he said.

Mr Deb further added that the BJP and the Congress had given their consent to this electricity project in the New Town areas. Initially, even Trinamul MLAs and leaders had agreed to setting up of this project, but a few days ago a movement was started against land acquisition and the Trinamul leaders seem to changed their minds.

After the hike, the average power tariff has risen by 14 paise (4.17 per cent) for WBSEDCL and 18.5 paise (4.7 per cent) for CESC consumers this fiscal compared to the previous one, WBERC sources said.

For the 2.3 million CESC consumers of Kolkata and Howrah, the hike is 15 paise for the first two slabs and 18 paise for the third in the domestic consumer category. For commercial consumers the average hike is 17 paise per unit and for the high-voltage consumers the average hike is 18 paise per unit.

Source: The Hindu Power tariff set to rise in West Bengal

Purchasing a pre-owned property? Then ensure that the previous owner has not left any electricity dues as the power distributor can compel you to pay them or disconnect supply in case of default.

In a significant ruling, the Delhi High Court has given distribution companies full power in this regard.

A special three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and constituted to decide on the contentious issue, said: "If there are electricity dues against the premises' previous owner who transfers it to a new owner, the new owner applying for a fresh electricity connection can be compelled by the distribution company to pay the arrears... and the distribution company can refuse to supply electricity to the premises on account of such non-payment."

"Electricity is a public property and hence the law in its majesty benignly protects public property and behoves everyone to respect public property. Hence, the courts must adopt the interpretation which furthers the preservation and protection of public property," said the bench quoting from a Supreme Court.

Source: Hindustan Times Watch out for old bills in new house