Indian Power Sector: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What's going on in Indian Power Sector?

CERC has categorically mentioned that fuel risks should not be passed to consumers straight away and should be shared among Coal India and Power Companies.
New Power Minister Mr. Scindia has already termed the task as "daunting'' s he ha rightly realized the challenges.
"New inspector" of the power utility as proposed by Ministry to keep tab on Power Plant's fuel impact upon tariff, has been downplayed by CERC.
The India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) has come out with a smart grid vision and road map, covering three five-year plans from 2012 to 2027. The 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), 13th (2017-22) and 14th Five-Year Plan (2022-27) respectively. This will take roughly an investment of $100 billion in technologies for generation, distribution, transmission and monitoring.
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd's Rs 2,000 crore investment plan for manufacturing solar equipment might become unviable if measures against dumping of Chinese items in the sector are not in place.
The Design Finance Build Operate and Transfer (DFBOT) model is opposed by Private Power Producers.Private power firms fear that in the proposed structure, the land continues to be owned by the utility, and there is no provision for the developer to create charge on the project assets. This results in banks treating such loans as unsecured loans, which reduces availability of bank financing.
AN SBI Cap report says that unlike Odisha power sector privatisation, the Delhi privatisation has been a success.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Will the power sector survive in India?

After two back to back grid collapse and domestic power industries pushed to wall , will the constrained Indian Power Sector survive?
Looking into this big question following routes lead to answer:-

DISCOMs running with over 2,50,000 Crore losses are getting debt restruction from GoI.
CIL or private miners or the imports. Get it from anywhere, the sector needs lots of coal.
Private distributors like Torrent in Agra may not succeed due to typical Indian Law and Order scenario.
Regulatory framework is a silver lining. Its because of CERC that power trading through two Exchanges has begun.Currently, the two exchanges -- Indian Energy Exchange Ltd (IEX) and Power Exchange India Ltd (PXIL) – trade about 35-40 million units a day.

How to construct EHV grid subsatation?

To evacuate power from generating station we need first a Step Up substation since the generation voltage is in the range of 11 KV only. This needs to be stepped up to 400 KV or 220 KV or 132 KV.
Then at the load centres it is again stepped down to 33 KV or 11 KV before final conversion into 440 V.
1.We need suiatble land for subsation.
2.Based upon load growth, operation speed, busbar arrangement, and fauld clearance , the layout and design is prepared.
3. Civil work starts with foundation of structures, equipements and cable trenches. Control room,quarters, fencing, road water supply , drainage and sewerage is contsructed thereafter.
4.Then power transformers, isolators,CTs, PTs, LAs, Control and relay panels, battery chargers abttery sets and shunt capacitors are installed.
5.After planning and laying the control wiring, testing is carried out.
Structures:- ( 220 KV ) all Black steel/ GI
AT1, AT8 for Column
AB 1, AB2 for Beam
AO, AO1 for isolators.
AO3 for CT/PT
AO4 for LA.
Busbars:-
ACSR conductors or pipes strung by tension disc insulators at the ends having tension of 750 kg. They are protected by earth wire at an angle of 30.
Various arrangements of busbars are given in the pictures below.
Earthing:-
Depending upon earth resistivity mesh isdesigned and layed. 200 mm MS rod or 50x10mm MS flat is trenched in 300 mm deep trenches. Mesh is connected to the ground with 28mm dia 3 m long earth electrode. Transformer tanks and neutarl needs separate earth electrodes. Final earth resistance should be < 0.2 ohms.
Safe IR :-
33 KV ( 1000), 132 KV ( 1400 ), 220 KV ( 6000 ).

Small Note on Acounting and Finance

While given a problem of preparing Profit & Loss Account and Balance Sheet from Trial Balance , follwoing tips were given by a friend:-

P & L Account :- What we have done during the year ? Credit ( in ) and Debit ( out ) is part of it.

Balance Sheet :- What is the statement at the end of year? It has two parts- Liability ( share holder ; which has 3 parts: capital, Reserves and Debt , Long Term Loans and Current Liabilty ; which includes short term debt , debtors and Provisions ) and Assets ( Fixed Assesta and Capital assets ; which includes Base, Liquid investment, receivables and Stock/inventory , NCA which means Long Term Investments Loans and Advances)

Expenses are of 3 types:- Cost of Material, Cost of Labour and Admin or Marketing. Further they can be booked as direct expenses( raw material, labour, wages, rent Maint of P&M ) and indirect expenses ( Directors Remun. , clerk's salary, Insurance, Bldg Maint, Heat & Power, Canteen, Welfare, Motor, Prof Charges, Postage and Telegr., Books and stationary, Packing etc )

Net Sales - expenses = PBDIT / EBITDA

PBDIT - DEP - Int = PBT

Op. Profit = Op. Income - Expenses - Dep.

PBT - taxes = PAT ( it has two parts:- Share Holdera and Reserves )

Sales - ST - Discounts = Net Sales

Now the question is , which part of Trial Balance is to be booked under which head?
Well some go into Trading ( raw material, Labour, Insurances, Sales, Discounts ), Some P&L ( salaries, Bldg Maint, Lab, Canteen, Rent, ST ) , some Balance Sheet ( Capital equity, Creditors, Taxation , P & L Account, Xerox Machine, Motor car) .