Meeting the demand

For the last four decades Kashmir Valley has been witnessing heavy power cuts particularly in winter, with the demand outstripping the supply. Gone are the days when, on commissioning of Lower Jhelum HEP in mid-seventies the then Chief Engineer Electrical was having sleepless nights wondering who would consume the 105MW of energy that the project would be generating. He was fearful of having a vigilance case slapped against him since there would be no buyers for the energy generated by the project.

Historical data on the per capita (annual) consumption of energy in J&K is not readily available but the same is available at all India level right from 1947 when it was a meagre 16KwH. In 2017 this figure had crossed 1100KwH. Looking at J&K data for past few years, figures for which are readily available, one can see that per capita consumption in J&K  closely follows the all India figures.

   

The many fold increase in demand has mainly be driven by increased rural electrification, rise in standard of living across the urban and rural areas, the affordable and easily availability of numerous electrical gadgets, and mostly importantly the growth in population. It has been our misfortune in J&K that while the demand side has shown exponential growth the supply side has not kept pace with it. This is true of generation, transmission and distribution systems in the state sector.

On the generation front after commissioning of Lower Jhelum HEP in mid 70’s, we were able to add another 105MW of Upper Sindh II HEP only some 20 years later. And then a decade later in 2008 450 MW Baglihar I HEP was commissioned. Seven years later 450 MW Baglihar II HEP was commissioned (which operates only during summer period) in Sep 2015. Had it not been for the central generating stations, whether the hydro plants of NHPC both in J&K and outside, or of other central hydro generating utilities like SJVNL, Tehri, NTPC Hydro or the thermal and nuclear plants of NTPC or Nuclear Power Corporation across north India, our power situation would have been even worse and we would have suffered even more severe power cuts. These central generating utilities (of hydro, thermal, nuclear) allocate power to J&K (and other states) in accordance with the Gadgil formulae and currently we in J&K are entitled to more 1700MW of power from these central generating utilities. This allocation includes more than 1050 MW of hydro and about 650 MW of thermal and nuclear power. However, given the serious shortage of power in J&K the central power ministry in addition to J&K’s entitlement under Gadgil formulae provides an additional allocation of 900 MW to J&K from the unallocated power from the Northern grid and yet another 100 MW from unallocated power in the Western Region. So overall we are currently getting more than 2700 MW of power as against our share/entitlement of 1700 MW.

Notwithstanding the narrative of likening NHPC to East India Company or that energy was stolen from J&K to lighten cities across North India let us look at the actual scenario as obtained in 2017 to understand how our energy demand is met, even if not fully. For understanding we only need to look at the generation figures of NHPC projects within J&K and the energy import figures into the State from the central generating utilities. 


The data in the table below pertains to the period 1 Jan 17 to 31 Dec 17

S No

Particulars – Source of Generation (2017)

Units

(in Crores)

A

Energy Generated by 7 NHPC plants in J&K

865

 

i.                    Energy Supplied to J&K PDD from the 7 NHPC plants in J&K

317

 

ii.                  Energy Exported to other states from the 7 NHPC plants in J&K

548

B

Total Energy Imported by J&K PDD from Central Generating Stations (CGS) located outside J&K

706

 

i.                    From CGS (Hydro) Plants (located in Himachal, Uttaranchal & Bhutan) 

163

 

ii.                  From Thermal and Nuclear Plants (including allocation from Western Region)

543

C

Net (Energy imported into J&K less energy exported out of J&K by NHPC) – 2017

158

D

Estimated Net import of Energy in 2018

400

From the table it is clear that, notwithstanding the generating company, J&K as a state imports far more power than its exports. And this net import figure of 158 crore units in 2017 will more than double this year (2018) since last year part of our demand was met locally by the 170 crore units generated Baglihar II HEP. Since JKSPDC has now managed to sell this power to Uttar Pradesh the resulting shortfall is likely to be met by importing additional energy from the central generating utilities. Added to this will be the increase in demand of about 5% (another about 74 crore units) during 2018. This is likely to result in total import of 950 crore units of energy in 2018 as against estimated export to other states of 548 crores from NHPC plants in J&K. Thus the net import is likely to be in excess of 400 crore units instead of 158 crore units in 2017.  

And since none of the under construction projects of JKSPDC are likely to be commissioned and operational in the next 5 years, we will continue to be heavily importing power from the central generating utilities in the coming years. Even if all the under construction projects, which aggregate a little over 100 MW, were to become operational they would on an average add about 40 crore units which is about half the average annual increase in demand. Just to get a feel of the magnitude of the problem facing us we need to be commissioning about 175 MW of hydro projects every year to just address the annual increase in demand.     

Iftikhar A Drabu is a civil engineer from NIT (previously REC), Srinagar.

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