POWER THERMAL

India's electricity demand growing at 10.5% is unprecedented: RK Singh

Union Minister for Power and Renewable Energy RK Singh has stated that the government is "well prepared" to handle the peak power demand this summer. He pointed out that the electricity demand in the country is growing at an unprecedented rate of 10.5%, and the government is confident that it can handle it.

To avoid a repeat of last year's power crisis, the Power Ministry has already issued two signifi- cant orders. The first order mandates all coalbased power generators to blend 6% of imported coal, while the second invokes section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2003, so that all thermal plants using imported coal generate at their full capacity.

Last year, these orders were issued in May, when the power crisis had already taken hold. In April and May 2022, many states in the country faced hours of outages due to heatwaves, rapid economic recovery, and a shortage of coal to generate power. This happened despite record coal production by Coal India in 2021-22.

To mitigate crisis this year, the government is eyeing multi-pronged strategies which include a total of 9,000 megawatt (MW) electricity from gas-based power plants and another 2,920 MW from brand new thermal power plants to meet the surge in power demand this summer.

Power prices expected to remain firm next fiscal amid higher demand: Crisil

Power prices are expected to remain firm next fiscal on the back of elevated demand growth of 5.5-6 per cent, and the demand is set to close this fiscal up 9.5-10 per cent over 8.2 per cent last fiscal, a report said.

The fears of a heat wave has seen the shortterm power prices soaring by a full 151 per cent. This was on the back of a 42 per cent on-year spike in prices in February, Crisil said in a report. The demand growth would mark a decadal high rate of growth and almost double the 20-year average of 5.2 per cent.

On generation, non-hydro renewable sources are estimated to account for 11 per cent this fiscal and their share is expected to rise a notch next fiscal, with solar and wind accounting for 13 per cent. Demand growth weighed in at 7.7 per cent in February and averaged 10 per cent for the 11 months of the current fiscal despite a high base of fiscal 2022 due to extreme weather events and robust industrial and manufacturing activity.

New domestic coal allocation policy to come into force on April 1, aims for even distribution of domestic coal

Domestic coal will be allocated in the ratio of the fortnightly average power production by generating stations, which will exclude the coal required by all the pithead stations of respective gencos, since they don’t use the railway network and receive coal through the MGR method or conveyor belts.

With the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) estimating a peak power demand of 229 GW in India in April 2023, the Union Power Ministry’s new domestic coal allocation policy is slated to come into force on April 1 with an aim to distribute domestically available coal in an even manner.

In a review meeting held on March 7 by Minister for Power, and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh with officials from the ministries of power, railways and coal; it was noted that the domestically available coal from April to June 2023 won’t be more than 201 million tonnes (MT) due to constraints in railway logistics. However, the projected need of coal for this period will be 222 MT, due to which the need for an even distribution of domestic coal was observed. All plants off taking coal through roads as per their requirement will also be excluded. From April to June 2023, coal to be made available from captive mines will also be excluded for allocation of rail rakes from Coal India Limited and SCCL.

Govt to ration coal supply to power plants in April-June 2023 on railway rake shortfall

Beginning next month, Power Ministry will ration domestic coal supply to power plants in the April-June quarter due to a shortage of 21 million tonnes (mt) on account of limited availability of railway rakes.

As per calculations, against the requirement of 222 mt of domestic coal in Q1 ‘FY 23 the likely availability from all will be around 201 mt only due to constraints in Railway logistics. It was decided that available domestic coal will be distributed amongst the Gencos (Central, State & IPPs) in a “fair and transparent manner”.

Earlier this month, Power Ministry said that Rail- ways agreed to provide 418 rakes a day and will enhance it in due course. Coal supply through rakes for the power sector in April-February FY23 stood at an average 408 rakes per day against 344 rakes a year-ago. In February, 426.3 rakes per day were loaded against 399 rakes last year.

The cumulative coal stocks at all power plants in the country as on March 22 is 34.37 million tonnes (MT), against a daily requirement of 2.78 MT. A total of 40 domestic coal based (DCB) power plants and seven imported coal based (ICB) plants have critical stocks. Power Ministry has projected a peak demand of 212 GW in March 2023. During FY24, peak demand is expected at 229 GW in the summer months.

Power ministry seeks comments on draft carbon credit trading scheme

The power ministry has issued a draft 'Carbon Credit Trading Scheme' with an aim to set up a framework for Indian carbon market and sought feedback from stakeholders.

The parliament has passed the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022. One of the provisions of this amendment included empowering the central government to specify carbon trading scheme. Now the ministry of power is in the process to finalise the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). The CCTS provides that an 'Accredited Carbon Verifier' means an agency accredited by the BEE to carry out validation or verification activities

In Respect Of The

CCTS.

The governance of the Indian Carbon Market (ICM) and direct oversight of its administrative and regulatory functioning shall vest in the governing board, to be called as ICMGB. The ICMGB will be power and environment secretaries would be the ex-officio co-chairmen of ICMGB.

The ICMGB shall meet at least once in a quarter of every year, or as may be required.

Expecting govt to invite bids for

Rs 1.50 lakh cr transmission projects in 18 months

The industry is expecting the government to invite bids for power transmission infrastructure projects worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore in the next 18 months. In December, the government launched a plan with investment opportunities of about Rs 2.44 lakh crore for building a transmission system for evacuating 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil-fuel based energy by 2030.

“We expect that nearly 60-65 percent of these projects totallingRs 1,50,000 crore will come up for bidding in next 18 months since completion of all processes and the construction of projects will take another 4-5 years,” Sterlite Power Transmission has said.

The industry expects the government to invite bids under tariff-based competitive bidding (TBCB) for power transmission infrastructure projects as it accelerates the creation of new power lines and green energy corridors to integrate a rising share of renewable power. The EBIDTA during this period rose by 8 percent on y-o-y basis to nearly Rs 950 crore while the cash position has improved by 4.8 times to Rs 1,047 crore on y-o-y basis for the corresponding period.

PFC Consulting transfers three power transmission projects to Power Grid Corp

State-owned Power Finance Corporation arm PFC Consulting said it has transferred three special purpose vehicles, which were set up to implement different transmission projects, to Power Grid Corporation namely 'BhadlaSikar Transmission Ltd', 'Dharamjaigarh Transmission Ltd' & 'Raipur Pool Dhamtari Transmission Ltd on March 28, 2023.

The bidder was selected through the tariffbased competitive bidding process. One of the SPVs -- BhadlaSikar Transmission Ltd -- was incorporated for establishment of transmission system strengthening scheme for evacuation of power from solar energy zones in Rajasthan (8.1 GW) under Phase-II Part-E.

The other two SPVs -- Dharamjaigarh Transmission Ltd and Raipur Pool Dhamtari Transmission Ltd -- were incorporated for establishment of the Western Region Expansion Schemes.

Tata Power proposes new 400 KV transmission corridor for Mumbai

Tata Power, one of India's largest integrated power companies has proposed setting up of a high voltage 400 KV line corridor for Mumbai, to the state government and the state regulatory authority.

This new transmission corridor of 400 KV will help meet the city’s growing electricity demand and enhance electricity distribution to as high as 15,000MW in future. If approved, this project could take four-five years and may cost around Rs 1,000 crore. The transmission line will be in the form of a ring with two hemispheres of 30 km each. If one hemisphere fails, the other will act as a backup.

Mumbai's demand of around 3,500 MW is met by 110 KV and 220 KV lines.With 400 KV lines, Tata Power can source double that capacity on single wire from outside Mumbai, it claims.

Tata Power has around 70 per cent share in power transmission of Mumbai. It also assured that this summer Mumbai will not witness any power shortage and that its load growth won't be as high as national load growth. The company said it has invested Rs 2,300 crore in improving transmission infrastructure over the last five years. This included replacing up to 90 per cent of the aged systems. The company plans to invest another Rs 700 crore over the next fiscal to better transmission.