Power production falls short of target by 8 billion units

Power generation fell short by nearly 8 billion units of the target of 975 billion units in the last financial year.

“Electricity generation by the utilities was targeted at 975 billion units of which 967.15 billion units was achieved during the financial year 2013-14,” the pre-budget survey tabled in Parliament on Wednesday said.

However, the power generation in 2013-14 was higher by 6 per cent compared to production of 912.06 billion units in 2012-13.

The electricity generation through thermal power plants grew by 8.3 per cent in 2013-14. Power production from gas-based plants declined by 33.4 per cent during the year, the survey said.

The government has set a target of generating over 1,023 billion units of power during in the current financial year.

Megawatt (MW) refers to generation capacity while million units indicates the amount of power or energy produced. One MW capacity can produce 1,000 units of power in one hour.Abysmal performance of the gas-based projects was due to lack of fuel. As much as 24,000 MW capacity of gas-based stations in the country was stranded due to lack of fuel.

But the overall efficiency of the thermal power stations from April, 2013, to March, 2014, declined to 65.55 per cent from 70.13 per cent in 2012-13 fiscal.

The Plant Load Factor (PLF), a measure of efficiency of power stations, of state-sector utilities remained lower than that of private-sector and central-sector utilities, the survey stated.

The peak power deficit — shortfall in electricity supply when the demand is maximum — declined to 4.5 per cent in 2013-14 from 9 per cent in 2012-13.

It stood at 10.6 per cent in the terminal year (2011-12) of the previous Five Year Plan Period (2007-12).

The capacity addition target for the 12th plan period (2012-17) is estimated at 88,537 MW comprising 26,182 MW in the central sector, 15,530 MW in the state sector and 46,825 MW in the private sector respectively.

The country missed the capacity addition target for 2013-14. “The capacity addition target for the year 2013-14 was 18,432.3 MW against which a capacity addition target of 17,825.1 MW has been achieved,” the survey said.

However, the country surpassed the capacity addition target in 2012-13. The target was 17,956.3 MW against which 20,622.8 MW was generated. A lion’s share of 20,121.8 MW was contributed by thermal power plants.