Delhi gets some additional power

The Capital on Thursday managed to get 100 MW of power from the unallocated quota of the Centre. It also got an assurance that there would be no shortage of power during the Commonwealth Games in October.

The Capital had earlier been left out of the Centre's unallocated quota for April. However, the unexpected surge in power demand caused by a sudden rise in temperature helped the city change the Centre's earlier decision. On Wednesday Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit met Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and apprised him of the city's power demand. She sought more power for the city in view of the rise in temperature and peak demand.

“Mr. Shinde instructed his Ministry to immediately release an additional 100 MW power to Delhi,” said a Delhi Government official.

The Chief Minister also made a reference to the non-availability of power from the Damodar Valley Corporation and the efforts the city discoms have to make to fill that gap. She pointed out that had power from the DVC arrived as per schedule, Delhi would have received more than 837 MW as against the current 40 MW. She expressed concern over delay in the commissioning of the Bawana and Jhajjar plants.

While Delhi is already getting 750 MW from Dadri-I and 425 MW from Dadri-II, it is hoping to get another 440 MW from Dadri-III from July 2010 onward.

Ms. Dikshit also insisted that the Union Power Ministry ensures proper discipline as far as overdrawal of power from the Northern Grid by various States is concerned. She pointed out that because of overdrawal by the States, under-frequency relay operations were frequent and caused power disruption in the city.

She also put forth the details of the procurement by the discoms, which have had to arrange power up to 1,000 MW from different sources. Mr. Shinde was informed that while Delhi's own generation was 1,100 MW, about 2,000 MW is being received from allocated quota. “Ms. Dikshit informed the Minister that the arrangements are inadequate to meet the city's demand that has shot up by over 20 per cent. She also requested that Delhi consumers should not be put to any inconvenience,” he said.

Mr. Shinde asked the State Government to strengthen its capacitor system to handle additional sanctioned power from the Central quota and asked the discoms to make arrangements for booking inter-regional corridor capacity to ensure transmission of power to Delhi.

On Thursday the city's peak demand for power rose up to 4,110 MW.