Goa
to sell power on-line
Sandesh Prabhudesai
15 July 2003
Goa is gearing up to sell excess power on-line, with the
new power act making power the free trade commodity to generate,
transmit and sell by July next year.
The tiny tourist state has already started selling distress
power at particular hours, making huge amount of profits.
"We will work out a defined mechanism with proper guidelines
to sell the power on-line", said chief minister Manohar
Parrikar. He is setting up an experts' committee to formulate
the power trading policy.
Goa is drawing around 358 MW of power, allocated by the National
Thermal Power Corporation, from the western and southern grids.
However, the state consumes at the most 296 MW at peak hours.
Parrikar claims that Goa is the only state selling excess
power with such a mechanism. The experiment has already begun
three weeks ago, drawing over Rs 1.25 crore additional monthly
revenue, besides the regular sale of excess power.
After signing the pact two years ago, the Power Trading Corporation
has provided around Rs 210 crore of revenue till date, selling
excess power from the western grid. The state has now also
signed another pact with the Global Energy Ltd, for the southern
grid.
In addition to this regular income coming from the standard
amount of excess power, Parrikar says the distress power that
gets generated at particular hours could be sold on the spot,
by working out the mechanism of on-line monitoring and sale.
"It will generate not less than Rs 110 crore annually",
claims the chief minister.
Because of huge amount of power thefts by the power-guzzling
units, the local bench of Mumbai high court had banned release
of power three years ago, bringing industrial development
to a grinding halt.
However, the power department was once again brought into
profit by acting tough against the power thieves, creating
excess power. After selling this excess power to other states,
the new methodology of on-line sale of power would be the
additional boost to the Goan economy.
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