January 11, 2013

Lucknow, India: The State of Uttar Pradesh is shivering and in darkness with six power plants tripping in succession hours after a sharp rise in electricity demand due to the unusually harsh winter.

Power demand rose to a level not seen since May 2011 level when the problems was peak heat in the summer. The overall power outages were more than 2,500MW.

This spells trouble for the ruling Samajwadi Party saddled with an election promise of providing free power to the rural areas and initiating measures to improve the power distribution network. Perhaps they should have considered wind and hydro for the winter months.

Electricity bosses said said the availability of coal has been one of the limiting factors behind the recent power shortage. They said the state government is in the process of initiating a project of purchasing power under a scheme called as Case-1 bidding.
The scheme would see power utility purchasing of around 6000MW from different sources for 25 years beginning 2016. But the process is in the evaluation stage.