Haryana overdrew 108.89 crore power in 14 days
27-Mar-2010 04:37:44 By: Vinod Kumar Gupta

Chandigarh: Haryana power utilities had overdrawn 2494 lakh units of power worth 108.89 crore in first fortnight of March from northern grid to cope with problem of closure of thermal units at Yamunanagar, Panipat and Khedar.

Power utilities over drew 2494 lakh units in the first fortnight of this month at average cost of Rs. 4.37 per unit following closure of 300 MW unit no. 2 at Yamunanagar thermal plant and three 110 MW units of Panipat thermal plant. Despite this heavy over drawl Haryana had an energy deficit of 1419 lakh unit.

As per UI data released by NRPC for the first two weeks of current month the power purchase rate of Rs. 5.59 per unit was maximum on March 5 and 13. The state purchased 850 lakh units on March 5 and 896 lakh units on March 13.

Yamuna Nagar Thermal Plant was closed on February 22 due to excessive collection of ash in Electro State Precipitation/hoppers. 110 MW unit No. 3 of Panipat Thermal Plant was closed on December 29 last year due to inflow of lubricating oil in turbine shaft thus over heating of Turbine

The 600 MW unit at Hisar was supposed to have been commissioned by February 21 .However this unit could generate only 153 lakh units during first fortnight of March causing an energy deficit of 1076 LU. The Yamunanagarthermal plant of 600 MW operated at only 46.6% PLF causing an energy deficit of 1863 lakh units

300 MW Yamunanagar thermal unit no 2 which became operational on March 14 is running on 170 -180 MW .600 MW Khedar plant was running at 220 MW for few hours on 24th and 25th of this month.

A senior engineer who analysed the data said that March is a lean period and power purchase bill running more than 100 crore for a fortnight one can imagine the power scenario in coming hot months. He further said due to poor operational performance of thermal plants a loss of Rs 50 crore has resulted over this period in addition to extended power cuts on consumers.