Power ministry warns states against destabilising national grid

The power ministry has warned states that have been overdrawing power from the national power grid of serious consequences if they continue to overdraw, which could jeopardise the national grid.

The states overdrawing power from the grid on a regular basis include Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh when the frequency was , below 49.0 hertz and asked them to refrain from overdrawal at frequencies below 49.5 Hz. in order to avoid potential grid disturbance.

It has asked these states and their utilities to discipline themselves, failing which they would face severe action as overdrawal from the grid beyond its power availability may have extremely serious ramifications for the country as a whole.

In a meeting recently convened by power ministry secretary Anil Razdan to discuss the critical condition of the integrated northern, eastern western and north-eastern grid and the southern region grid in the recent past, Razdan said that whenever necessary, the states must resort to suitable and prompt regulation.

He said that priority must be given to public utility services and essential services if the supply is less than demand. Razdan also expressed serious concern about the outage of generating units and inability to meet higher demand.

He also asked all state generating utilities as well as the Central PSUs like NTPC and NHPC to increase generation by atleast 10 per cent and suggested that states should scout around for any untapped captive power units and get them connected to the grid and also maximise and dispatch all liquid and gas fuels.

The main reasons for persistent overdrawal of power were higher consumption, lower generation due insufficient rainfall, low water reservoir levels, outages, fuel shortage and delay in commissioning of units.

The power secretary emphasised that given the critical coal stock position at a large number of thermal power stations and the position of coal supply from the domestic sources, utilities need to import coal according to the target given to them, while insisting upon the coal companies to improve materialisation of the contracted linkage of domestic supply. Some states reported materialization below 60 per cent.