R.V. Shahi, former Scretary, Union Ministry of Power, delivering a lecture at a function organised by The Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Tamil Nadu Electricity Consumers’ Association in Coimbatore on Thursday. Coimbatore industries should explore possibility of a captive power generation project, R.V. Shahi, former secretary of the Union Ministry of Power said here on Thursday. He was speaking at a meeting organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore and Tamil Nadu Electricity Consumers’ Association on the “Indian Power Sector – Issues and Challenges.” Coimbatore was next only to Chennai in the State in terms of power consumption. And, industry was the major consumer here. “So, adverse supply situation here will affect the growth of the State.” With liberal provisions in the Electricity Act 2003 for captive generation, Coimbatore industries should look at about 1,000 MW captive generation. “You may have issues and problems but the proposal is worth consideration.”
In Tamil Nadu, the problem of power shortage now was mainly due to a couple of factors. In 1997, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board’s generation capacity was 9,000 MW. Tamil Nadu was a growing State and in some States the growth was expected to be higher than the average national-level economic growth. If the economy here was growing at 10 per cent, then power generation should increase by 8 per cent to 9 per cent. Even if it had been 6 per cent, 5,500 MW should have been added. But from 1997 to 2007 the board’s capacity addition was just 1,700 MW. “And that is the consequence we are facing now.”
The peak hour shortage in 2002-2003 was 3 per cent to 4 per cent in the State and it was 15 per cent now. The technical and commercial loss was 22 per cent while “We expect a State to have less than 15 per cent,” he said. Reorganisation of the board would help pinpoint responsibility. Speaking about the national-level issues and challenges, Mr. Shahi said in India we could achieve electricity generation growth of just 4 per cent to 5 per cent. “We started with 3.1 per cent growth in electricity in 2001-2002 and we started tightening measures.”
The growth was 7.2 per cent in 2006-2007 and that was the year when the GDP growth was 9.1 to 9.2 per cent. Today, any aspect of growth, be it agriculture or manufacturing, was influenced by electricity. Now, the country had an integrated energy policy targeting about 8 per cent growth in electricity generation. The installed capacity now was 1,45,000 MW, excluding the captive power plants, and this was expected to go up to eight lakh MW in 25 years. The Electricity Act 2003 stipulated total change in the sector. Creation of generation capacity required special attention.
Reorganisation of the electricity boards was one of the important aspects of this legislation. Subsequent to the Act, Electricity policy had been set. “Our requirements are so large that we need coal, hydro, gas, wind and nuclear energy,” he said. India would have to enhance its nuclear capacity. The country should also produce power at rates that was affordable to all. However, areas of concern were the need for the manufacturing sector to gear up for the capacity enhancement and fuel to meet the accelerated growth on the energy generation front, he said.