Chandigarh, January 20
The power crisis in north India is set to worsen in the coming weeks. Major hydro power stations spread across North India have started conserving whatever little water is available till the snow starts melting in May and the dams starts filling up again.
For hydro projects it is like scrapping the bottom of the barrel. A bad monsoon had left the reservoirs in North India half empty by September which was unprecedented.
The turbines at Bhakra dam, for the first time ever in its history, has been stopped for night generation or what is called off-peak hours. The inflow in Nathpa Jhakri located on the Satluj in Rampur, Himachal Pradesh, is enough to run only one of the six power generating machines while the Ranjit Sagar on the river Ravi has only about 30 feet of water left in its reservoir.
Compounding the problem is the lack of adequate back-up from the thermal power stations. Sources in the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) said the crisis in the state has been magnified as few units have been closed down simultaneously.
One unit of 210 MW at Ropar thermal plant has been closed for routine maintenance which could not be avoided. Two other units of 210 MW each at Ropar have been shut down for repairs following a technical glitch.
Another two units of 110 MW each at the Bathinda thermal power station are also shut down for routine maintenance.
The present crisis will be tackled partially, when the two units of the Ropar plant are repaired and re-started in the next 24 to 48 hours and start feeding 420 MW of power.
At present the thermal plants in Punjab are providing 1370 MW of power whereas the installed capacity is 2120 MW.
The Chairman of the Bhakra Beas Management Board, Mr Rakesh Nath, says "we cannot allow the dams to be emptied as some water has to be retained till May 20." The only answer is to reduce generation and the partner states have been informed that the cuts on power and water will be even more intensive from now on.
At Rampur in Himachal is the Nathpa Jhakri project of the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam. The inflow is reduced to 2,100 cusecs which is enough to operate only one turbine, admits the Nigam's Shimla based spokesperson, Mr V.K. Verma.
At Bhakra, Mr Nath explains, the calculation of total quantity of water in the reservoirs is even more crucial than the existing level of water. The dams are in "V" shaped valleys and store less water at the base. The Bhakra dam at present has 1.1 million acre feet (MAF) of water. In normal circumstances it should be double than this, that is 2 MAF. The reservoir at Pong dam has 1.44 MAF of water. Even this should be more than 2 MAF in normal years.
At Ranjit Sagar on the Ravi the present water level allows for the running of only one of the four turbines during peak hours, sources said.
Upstream of Ranjit Sagar is the Chamera project near Chamba. Its power generation has been reduced as the inflow is less than 900 cusecs, NHPC officials admitted, while adding the project uses very small storage and uses whatever water is available from the river on a daily basis.
In Haryana the position of the thermal plants is better than Punjab. Panipat thermal plant has an installed capacity of 1100 MW and one unit of 110 MW is not running. The plant near Faridabad is running to its capacity of 195 MW.
