Load shedding and power woes would continue to affect the state despite the government’s effort to mitigate the situation in view of the recently concluded assembly elections and the ongoing HSLC and HSSLC examinations. State continued to reel under power shortage as demand far exceeded the availability of power.
According to Er. K. Miachieo, the actual availability during November to April peak hours (5 p.m. to 10 p.m.) was 60 MW while for off-peak hours (10 p.m. to 5 p.m.), it was just 40 MW.
This was in sharp contrast to the actual demand of 110 MW during peak hours and 80 MW during off-peak hours.
While giving the details of how power requirement of the state was met (totaling to 127.80 MW) from ten sources from both within and outside the state, the chief engineer said the allocation was based on the installed project capacity and actual availability during lean season which was only 20 to 40% of the actual allocated share.
Miachieo also said that due to the huge gap between demand and availability from the allocated sources, the state power department was purchasing additional 20MW from power exchange since December 2012 to mitigate the power situation in the state.
He however added that the additional purchase was “not firm” due to restrictions imposed by North Eastern Regional Load Dispatch Centre because of transmission capacity limitation in Northeast region and “prohibitive” cost exceeding more than Rs. 6.50/- per unit at times on a day.
The chief engineer admitted that it was not possible to maintain two hours ON and one hour OFF schedule for coordinated load shedding.
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