Herald continues to follow the story of how Reliance Power announced a sudden stoppage of power to 86 critically power-dependent units, due to an unexplained shutdown leading to panic. At a time when the mining judgment has drained investor confidence, the power blackmail by RIL has had a telling effect on the industrial climate
l No Reliance: Govt can save Rs 140 crores by buying from national grid l Goa Inc not yet confident though of stable power from govt after Reliance Power shuts down l RIL explains power blackout due to “maintenance shutdown”. It also says its due to a “technical snag”
AJIT JOHN
ajit@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: It’s getting close to two weeks since Reliance shut down power to 86 units with no notice. Nor has it informed when the power would be restored. It’s only response to anyone in the state including the government has been to Herald in response to its emailed questions. The reply was vague and non-committal.
Nagraj Rao Vice-President , Corporate Communications, Reliance Power said, in a statement “Goa power plant is under unscheduled maintenance shutdown due to technical reasons. The technical snag is being attended to at present. In these kind of unpredictable situations there is never an opportunity to keep customers informed well in advance. We do not respond to speculation and unfounded interpretation.”
On the flip side, this provides ample opportunity to the Goa government to step in and supply quality power. It may help the government take some tough decisions that could benefit the state.
The situation in Goa with regards to the supply of power has changed dramatically since the time the Reliance Salgaocar Power Company Limited set up operations to generate 48 megawatts in 1998. Today there is a new transformer at the Verna substation that has improved the power quality. The state as per studies conducted will have a maximum demand of 1548 kva in 2014. Every hour there is an annual consumption of 7.40 kilowatts in the state. The Reliance plant is operating at 60 per cent plant load factor ( average 29 mw on December 13). Half of the power from this plant is consumed by GED as part of the current agreement. The GED is paying Rs. 200 crores to Reliance after buying it at Rs. 16 per unit. The state could save Rs. 140 crore by purchasing it from the national grid at negotiated prices, which could even be Rs 5 per unit.
The situation is expected to improve even further now since the coal block at Chhattisgarh which has been sanctioned to the state will become operational very soon. This will ensure that Goa gets another 40 kilowatts of power. Goa requires 434 megawatts of electricity. The state receives 400 megawatts from the Kothari grid with Kaiga providing 25 megawatts and the rest coming in from Ambewadi . P S Jagadeesha, Corporate Affairs, Syngenta India Limited stated that the entire episode had left a bad taste in the mouth. He said “ Reliable and stable power supply is critical for our operation. We were concerned that the power supply would be interrupted.” Asked how this would affect them he said “ Syngenta Limited has a separate PPA with Reliance. At this stage it is premature to say anything about the expiry of the PPA between the GoG and Reliance or about the effect that would have on our agreement”. He said the company hoped that an amicable solution would be reached that could bring back high quality power distribution. Crucially when asked if the company was equipped to shift over to the government grid if the need arose he said “ It may take some time but if we get the support of the government we can switch over to the government grid.” He could be articulating the sentiments of several corporates in the state who could be looking to the government to provide them with electricity. Some of the companies affected by this are Coco Cola, Persistent Systems, Hindustan Unilever Bharti Airtel, Konkan Air Products, Choksi Laboratories and Pentair Water to name a few.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar met senior industry captains when the crisis peaked around April 18 but now needs to see this not as a passing crisis but needs to look at long term solutions.
