Maharashtras hopes of turning into a power-surplus state in 2013-14 have taken a knock with water scarcity forcing a shutdown of the 1,130-MW Parli power project and poor gas supply hitting the Dabhol and Uran power projects. The statewide shortfall now is 4,000 MW. Data on the Maharashtra Generation Company (Mahagenco) website show that the gap between power generation and demand is rising by the day. As on Thursday,generation was 8,551 MW and demand 12,805 MW. Two weeks earlier,on February 7,the shortfall was only 588 MW. The state has decided to supply power even to high-loss areas during the ongoing board exams,and this has contributed to the daily shortfall,Mahagenco officials say. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said all six units of the Parli plant have had to be shut down due to the water shortage. The plant,in Beed,receives water from the Khadka barrage,which now has practically none. The Maharashtra State Electricity Boards thermal plant at Chandrapur,whose capacity is 2,340 MW,generates 1,800 MW now. Poor rains during the last two years and the ongoing drought have resulted in the Maharashtra government prioritising drinking,agriculture and industry,in that order,for water supply. Beed,Osmanabad,Ahmednagar and Jalna districts in the Marathwada region are among the worst affected. Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd,better known as the Dabhol power plant,has been forced into intermittent shutdowns by low gas supply levels,which have now reached 0.25 mmscmd (million metric standard cubic metres per day). It was 1.3 mmscmd in January,allowing the plant to produce between 270 and 300MW,then dropped to 1.1 mmscmd and finally to 0.4 mmscmd this month. The low gas supply requires us to shut down for around 10 days and then run for two or three days by managing underdrawal and overdrawal, said an RGPPL executive. The 1,967-MW plant is producing only 300 MW. The Uran plant,whose capacity is 852 MW,is producing 600 MW because of inadequate gas. We are somehow managing it without any load-shedding, said Chavan,conceding the situation is turning critical. When the Congress-NCP government was voted to power in 2009,it had promised to make the state load-shedding-free by December 2012. The Parli thermal plant,which has an installed capacity of 1,130 MW,has been shut down for a week on account of water shortage. Two of its five units had been closed over the last few weeks and the remaining three units,with a collective generation capacity of 670 MW,were shut down on Sunday last week. Mahagenco officials told The Indian Express that they took the decision after they had exhausted all other options. After the Khadka barrage,which supplies water to the plant,had dried up,Mahagenco managed to secure for the plant three thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water from the Mudgal barrage. However,because of the parched river basin and sand excavation,only 1.5 TMC reached the Khadka dam. We used that water to run the plant for three weeks. Once that was used up,we were left with no option other than suspend operations till the rains, said a Mahagenco official. Only a couple of months earlier,Maharashtra had been optimistic about turning into a power-surplus state in the upcoming financial year on account of strong capacity addition plans by private players as well as state-owned utilities in the current and next years. In response to an RTI filed by The Indian Express,the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDC) said,The surplus power after timely completion of these projects is 1,369 MW for the year 2013-14 and 898 MW for the year 2014-15.
