Look forward to a power-surplus summer this year

The Delhi government plans to go on a drill mode of sorts to ensure smooth power supply this summer keeping in mind the Commonwealth Games, which are barely eight months away.

The ensuing summer months are the last chance before the Games to check the preparedness of the Capital’s power supply apparatus — so often caught napping in times of crisis.

“We will keep a close watch on the power scenario this summer because it is the only scope to understand our real-time preparedness for the Games before the actual event. We have communicated to the discoms about the same,” said Delhi Power Secretary Rajendra Kumar.

This year will be the first time when the perennially power-starved Delhi will see a glut of power thanks to the availability of power from all the major long-term generation plants.

In other words, the chances of power cuts due to inadequate power in the system could well be a thing of the past. Until, of course, the demand catches up.

By July, NTPC’s gas-based 980 MW Dadri plant will be commissioned. Delhi is supposed to get around 800 of that.

Delhi’s own Bawana power plant will start generating around the same time. It will start with one of the six units. A unit will be commissioned every alternate month.

There will be around 400 MW from West Bengal’s Damodar Valley. A 250 MW unit will start at Jhajjar, Haryana.

“We expect the total availability to go up to 4800 MW,” Kumar said.

The government has asked the discoms to keep a minimum of 10 per cent increase from last year’s peak power demand while arranging for this summer.

The usual rate of increase from last year, however, is around 8 per cent.

With the commissioning of 400 MW from one of the NTPC’s Dadri units in January end, discoms are having to either bank a huge amount of surplus power or sell cheap since the demand in Delhi is low.

“We had arranged for power assuming the Dadri unit will once again fail its deadline. But since it could meet the deadline, we are now awash with additional power,” said a senior discom official who did not wish to be named.

“We are banking power now. As far as the summer months are concerned, we are absolutely prepared,” said Gopal Saxena, CEO, BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, the largest discom.