Hobson’s choice for Punjab – Additional power at higher tariff
December 24, 2012 04:00 PM
By Vinod Gupta
Due to fuel constraint, blending of imported coal with domestic coal for upcoming thermal project in Punjab is going to bleed Punjab consumers white. In Punjab ,six thermal units with total capacity of 3220 MW are likely to be commissioned next year .All the three units of 660 MW each of Talwandi Sabo thermal plant, two units of 270 MW at Goindwal Sahib and one 700 MW unit at Rajpura thermal are scheduled to be synchronized in 2013-14.
The commissioning of these units may be good news for Punjab consumers but there is also a bad news for them. The upcoming thermal plants will have to use imported coal in view of fuel constraints as Coal India will not be supplying full coal requirements of these plants. The blending of imported coal with domestic coal will dent the financial viability of PSPCL and increase the power tariff for consumers..
For Talwandi Sabo, E/F grade coal has been sanctioned from Basundra coal fields. The private company is yet to enter fuel supply agreement with CIL. For Rajpura coal linkage from Korba Raigarh fields was given for original capacity. Additional coal linkage has been sought. For Goindwal Sahib captive coal mines in Takisud north block is there and work of providing railway siding is going on at present.
In case of Talwandi Sabo thermal the fuel charges for indigenous coal works out to be Rs.1.81 per unit ,for Goindwal Sahib thermal this is Rs.1.88 per unit and for Rajpura thermal it is Rs. 1.77 per unit.
As all these plants will have to use imported coal to face the coal shortages the fuel charges are bound to increase. As per estimates of PSPCL, the blending of 35 % imported coal with indigenous coal will increase the fuel cost for Talwandi Sabo to Rs. 2.22 per unit, Rs. 2.32 per unit for Goindwal sahib thermal and Rs. 2.14 per unit for Rajpura thermal. Thus the increase in fuel cost due to blending of imported coal varies between 37 paise to 44 paise per unit.
The additional annual financial implication for blending of coal will be Rs. 530 crore for Talwandi Sabo, Rs. 340 crore for Rajpura thermal and Rs. 155 crore for Goindwal Sahib thermal project. These figures are based on assumption of 80% plant load factor and 7% auxiliary consumption.
The total annual financial implications for PSPCL will be Rs. 1025 crore which shall be passed on the consumers. This will increase the power tariff for the consumer which is being fixed by Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission after taking in to account all the input costs.
The addition of generation capacity in private sector will have another major problem for PSPCL during the winter season. During lean period of winter, power demands goes down and with the increased generation capacity PSPCL will be forced to shut down its units to allow generation to private sector power plants.
This will further dent the financial viability of PSPCL and the company’s performance may slip further. PSPCL has great comfort for its in house generation as it has its own mine operated by a joint venture company PANEM whose coal is sufficient for PSPCL thermal plants. But as per power purchase agreements signed by it with private sector generators, it shall have to shut its own thermal plants producing cheap power and draw costly power from private sector thermal plants.
The best choice for Punjab to meet future power demand is to install its own thermal plants like Mukerian thermal and Gidderbaha thermal plants in state sector for which it has sufficient domestic coal.