Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his urgent intervention to tide over the energy crisis in Andhra Pradesh.
The Chief Minister requested the Prime Minister to direct the union ministries of coal and railways to allot 20 coal rakes to the state. He asked for revival of stranded/non-working pit-head coal plants in India without PPAs or coal linkage on an emergency basis as some of these are under CIRP process by NCLT. He said such plants must also commence operations immediately regardless of stage of proceedings at NCLT and opined that it would save the coal transport time and quantity limitations in coal transportation to non-pit head coal plants. He asked for supply of deep water well gas available with ONGC and Reliance on emergency basis to 2,300 mw capacity stranded/non-working gas plants. He said the deficit of nearly 500 mw power from central generating stations due to plant maintenance could be bridged by reviving the plants at the earliest or by postponing the maintenance. He asked the Prime Minister to instruct banks/lending institutions to provide working capital loans liberally to Discoms till the crisis was tided over in order to make coal payments and to undertake market purchases.
Jagan Mohan Reddy said the unfolding international energy crisis resulted in three-fold increase in electricity prices across Europe and China and also hit India and added that the post-Covid power demand in the state increased by 15 percent in the last six months and by 20 percent in the last one month.
The Chief Minister said, “Andhra Pradesh has been meeting a grid demand of about 185-195 MU daily. Power generation stations operated by APGenco which supply about 45 percent of the state's energy needs, hardly have coal stocks for one or two days and it may impact power generation. APGenco coal plants are operating at less than 50 percent of their 90 MU/day capacity due to shortage of coal. The central generation stations have also not been able to supply more than 75 percent of their 40 MU/day capacity. To absorb 8,000 MW of renewable energy capacity, AP has not been executing contracts with coal-based plants and consequently, it depends heavily on market purchases for sourcing its shortfall energy.”
He said, “The daily average market price of about 40 MU/day energy that we purchase has increased three times from Rs 4.6 per kWh on September 15 to daily average of Rs 15 per kWh on Friday. The rates in Day-Ahead and Real Time power markets are soaring day by day and have reached the peak of Rs 20 per power unit at most times of the day. The power is also not available at certain hours in the market due to less availability of generation in the country. It is quite an alarming situation and the finances of distribution companies will deteriorate further if the situation persists. More water is required in the last stage of harvesting and if it is denied, fields would dry up and farmers stand to lose. Unplanned power cuts once resorted to, will lead to chaotic conditions as we witnessed in 2012. It has become increasingly difficult for us to meet the grid demand and the circumstances are pushing us towards load shedding.”
