'Commission five pending projects, buy 1,500 MW every year'.For a brighter future, the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) has directed the state government to commission all power projects that are on the drawing board and stranded halfway through.
Five projects are on the drawing board now, meant to generate 10,400 MW. Besides commissioning these, the KERC has also suggested purchase of 1,500 MW through long term purchase every year till 2018 to ease the expected power crisis in the state.
Speaking on the sidelines of a workshop on Electricity Governance and Planning in Karnataka organised by the department of management studies, Cistup and CIVIC, M R Sreenivasa Murthy, KERC chairman, explained, "The commission embarked on a study to find out the future unrestricted energy requirements of the state and submitted a detailed report to the government a month ago. We have suggested various measures and it is up to the government to take appropriate measures."
According to the KERC, the state has been witnessing a seven per cent increase every year in its power consumption and it will almost double by 2022. "World's per capita energy consumption is pegged at 2,500 units per year per person. But in Karnataka, we have already reached one-third of it by consuming 800 units per year per person. It is axiomatic that we cannot supply the required amount of power owing to the widening gap between generation and demand. Hence, we have adopted restricted power supply," Murthy explained.
Currently, the state is consuming 63,000 million units of restricted power per year. "If we had to supply unrestricted power, then it will increase by another 5,000 million units more. By 2022, it will reach 1,10,000 million units which is double the current requirement. We have studied in detail and found that if the government could commission all the projects that are under way and on drawing board, then we may be able to reach out to that demand," he said. If all the projects on the drawing board are commissioned, 84,00,000 million units would be added to the state grid.
Last year, the state consumed about 57,000 million units. Because of improper planning and short term purchase of power, there has been a deficit of 13-16 per cent every year in supplying uninterrupted power. "If you do not plan well, then the deficit will increase beyond 20 per cent," he cautioned.
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