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.

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.

Power Sector Updates

• How much energy India gulps in a year ? Thats good 450 MTOe. ( 1 MW is equivalentto 2000 TOe).


• What is PAT ? That,s Perform Achieve and Trade guidelines issued by BEE for 8 industrial sectors.


• How much Wind+Hydro+Biomass can generate in India according to WB? That's 68000 MW.


• How much amount India is investing in PV and CSP under NSM ? That's Rs.90,000 Crore.


• 9900 MW Jaitpur ( MH) NPP is likely to be delayed in wake of Fukushima. This was being executed by Areva od France.


• CAG has pulled up which state for losses after reforms.


• GAIL is planning to foray into power generation. It is tying up with NTPC to set up gas based plants.

Indian Power Sector buzzing with activities

• India has a large generation capacity . (4 % of the world capacity). Not bad, isn't it ? But thanks to our teeming billions, this is really little. Our per capita consumption is not even 1000 KWH/year. World average is close to 3000 KWH/year.
• Transmission scenario is even more worrysome than generation. Only 13 % of the generated power can be transmitted at present. Plan is to increase this to 20% by 2012.
• Tough time ahead for Chinese suppliers? With majority of orders in recent past going to China, govt has proposed 10% import duty, just to bail out BHEL. But one govt body is protesting this import duty. Guess whom? Competition Commision of India ( CCI) ! Here the catch is India can't survive without China as Indian power equipment suppliers dont have the capacity to serve massive orders coming for UMPPs.
• So, its official now. Govt alone cant take ahead nuke power projects. But being a sensitive issue, we now hear what is termed as "minor" private partnership in nuke power sector.
• The new baseline for CO2 emmission has come. CEA has declared it as 0.82 t CO2 / MWh.
• One of our neighbours has realised that they depend upon us for power sector growth. Yes, its the Bangladesh.We are poised to hear more Indo-Bangla power transmission agreements.
• This five year plan could add only 62000 MW against the target of 78000 MW. But current year was super duper hit. Compared to not even 10,000 MW added in each of the last 3 years, this year added good 22,000 MW.
• Despite above, 57 % of our rural houses and 12 % of urban houses are dark. Reason? I think its coal shortage. 75 of our power plants run on coal which consume most of 400 mT produced by CIL. What about gas? Well, picture is even more grim there. Only 144 mscmd is produced in India. So, coal is, and will remain king fuel in Indian power sector.