Kerala faces major power crisis, loadshedding imposed

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala faced a major power crisis on Tuesday after the collapse of the northern and eastern power grids left the state short of roughly 850 megawatt, forcing the KSEB to impose cyclic loadshedding in the state. KSEB officials said they expected normalcy by Wednesday. If not, the restrictions would continue. The blow to Kerala came from the collapse of the Talcher-Kolar line, the main power highway transmitting power to the state.

According to Union Minister of State for Power K C Venugopal’s office, Kerala faced a shortage of 432 MW from stage I and II of NTPC’s Talcher station in Odisha, another 135 MW from the Kalga thermal power station in Bihar and Farakka super thermal power station in West Bengal - all three in the eastern grid. Kerala also fell short of 100 MW from the Jajjar power station in Haryana, which is part of the northern grid.

The daily power demand being approximately 3,300 MW, the KSEB had no option but to impose cyclic loadshedding from noon onwards. KSEB officials said the loadshedding would be “as per requirement”. “We get around 950 MW daily from the Central pool. In addition, we obtain 400 MW through power purchases and around 150-200 MW through the power exchange. All these have been affected,’’ KSEB Member (generation and transmission operations) M Mohammedali Rawther said.

The collapse of the northern and eastern power grids left the state short of roughly 850 megawatt of power.

Already, KSEB has been procuring 150 MW from the NTPC’s Rajiv Gandhi combined cycle power project, Kayamkulam.

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