MINISTER: MAKE ALL TSPL UNITS OPERATIONAL

PATIALA: Power minister Harbhajan Singh has directed the management of the 1,980 MW Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd (TSPL) to make all its units operational before the onset of paddy season to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply to the consumers in Punjab.

The minister visited the coal based private thermal plant (3x660 MW) situated in Banawala village in Mansa district on Saturday and expressed serious concern over the repeated outages of TSPL units due to boiler snags.

Noting that last year too, the plant could not ensure availability of all the units, Singh said that now, the authorities of the TSPL have been directed to maintain availability of all the three units throughout the summer and paddy season to avoid power shortages.

TSPL was also directed to start generating power from its unit no. 2, presently under planned annual overhauling till May 15, at the earliest.

The minister also inspected coal stock at the site and directed the plant authorities to ensure sufficient coal for running all the units, especially during the paddy season lest the state is constrained to take penal action against the firm.

He said that intense heat in the northern region coupled with coal shortage prevailing in the country has resulted in scarcity of power available in the exchange. PSPCL was managing this difficult situation till April 26 and was providing adequate supply to all sections of consumers.

However, during the midnight of April 26, an outage of more than 850 MW i.e. 660 MW from TSPL Talwandi and 210 MW from Ropar thermal plant on fault, worsened the situation. Now, Ropar unit no 6 & TSPL unit no 3 are generating full load. Ropar Unit no. 5 under overhaul has also started generation. From May 1, 300 MW more power that was being supplied for banking, has become available for local supply, the minister said.

Despite the grim scenario, PSPCL has catered to the peak demand of 9,986 MW on April 30 from all its resources in comparison to 6,860 MW of last year.

PSPCL supplied on average 6,821 MW during the month of April 2022, which is 32% more than monthly average of 5,162 MW supplied during the same period last year.

To meet this increased demand, PSPCL has purchased 305 MUS at more than ₹11 per unit in the month of April 2022 against only 177 MUS purchased in 2021 at ₹ 3.48 per unit.