Thiruvananthapuram: At a time when things looked bleak, the state’s reservoirs have witnessed unprecedented inflow in the last couple of days. For the first time in over eight months, the inflow has crossed 11 million units a day. The average for the last eight months was a paltry 3 MU.
This has allowed KSEBL to increase hydel generation making it less dependent on costly outside purchase. “It also helped that daily consumption dropped to 70 MU, a surprising low during summer when the average daily consumption threatened to touch 80 MU. Normally, it is only on Sundays that consumption dropped to near 70 MU. Thanks to sudden showers, we managed to reduce consumption to holiday levels,” a top KSEBL official said.
The showers were a blessing as the public utility was finding the going tough in the last two weeks. Both the units of Kudankulam Nuclear Plant had been shut down; the first one was shut down in April for annual maintenance and the second unit had to be shut down on May 5 after water and steam leakage. The 115 MW the state was sourcing from Kudankulam, therefore, stopped coming in from May 5. Besides the Kudankulam loss, there is shortage from another central generating station, Talcher Power Plant, Odisha. The state has a deficit of 120 MW daily from Talcher; only 280 MW of the usual 400 MW now reaches the state from the thermal station.
To make up for the deficit KSEBL was forced to purchase power from outside. “With demand on the rise purchasing from the open market is not a sustainable strategy for a cash-strapped utility like ours,” the official said. The increase in inflow has therefore allowed KSEBL to increase hydel generation. During the last four months, when the heat wave was unrelenting, the average hydel generation was kept at a 5 MU. For the last couple of days, KSEBL has increased production to 17-18 MU.
