NE officials to resolve ‘common issues’ for betterment of power sector

21st meetings of Technical Coordination Committee and North Eastern Regional Power Committee underway in Kohima

Our Correspondent
Kohima | February 3

The two-day long 21st meetings of Technical Coordination Committee (TCC) and North Eastern Regional Power Committee (NERPC) got underway here at Hotel Vivor on February 3.

The meetings witnessed officials from NERPC, constituents members and power utilities-, AEGCL, APDCL, PGCIL, NERTS, NEEPCO, MEPTCL, MEPGCL, MePDCL, DoP Arunachal Pradesh, DoP Mizoram, NERLDC, MSPCL, TSECL, NETC, NHPC, NTPC, PTC India, OTPC and Power Department, Nagaland.

Addressing the introductory service, Shikato Sema, Chairman TCC & Engineer-in-Chief, Power Department Nagaland said that during the two day meeting, officials from the north eastern states will discuss and resolve the ‘common issues for the betterment of the power sector.’

Appeal to take measures to clear up dues
On figures of outstanding dues to NEEPCO, OTPC and NTPC, he urged the constituent members to take some extra ordinary measures to clear up the dues as the financial health of those generating companies is crucial to the sustainability for the region as a whole.

“Since almost all the states has completed the implementation of ADMS pilot project, we need to take up the ADMS project implementation for the entire state as early as possible from PSDF funding. As far as SAMAST project is concerned which was taken up as common for all north eastern states, it is already under implementation in some states, therefore the rest which was left out need to be pushed for early implementation,” Shikato said.

Thanking NERLDC for helping in finalizing SAMAST DPR, he said “Now, we are awaiting PSDF grant and SAMAST implementation will help all the SLDC in building up its capability to a great extent.”

We need to take up forcefully once again with Government of India on the PSDF funding pattern with regards to “Reliable Communication” project for 100% funding as a special case for North east states, he said.

To optimize the benefit to the fullest, the downstream connectivity considerations should also be planned and considered accordingly during conceptualization itself by all concerned especially during project appraisal, he said.

“The downstream connectivity issue of 400/220kV kV sub-station at Zhadima, Nagaland and 11kV downstream connectivity for NERPSIP in Nagaland is a classic example, where the beneficiary states were not properly apprised of its responsibilities,” he added.

Power sector in India progressing
The TCC, Chairman Shikato Sema said that the power sector in India has undergone significant progress after Independence.

When India became Independent in 1947, the country had a power generating capacity of 1,362 MW. At present all India installed capacity is approximately 374 GW as on December, 2020, i.e. Generation capacity is augmenting at a CAGR of approximately 7%.

“Conventional fossil based generation resources have been dominating the energy portfolio over the years. However, installed renewable generation capacity has increased at a fast pace over the past few years, posting a CAGR of 17.33% between FY14-FY20. The Government of India has also set the ambitious target of installing 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022, which includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from bio-power and 5 GW from small hydro-power,” he said.

As far as NER Grid is concerned, there was a time when Kopili HEP, Khangdong HEP and Loktak HEP were the only central sector generators in NE region and NER Grid was dependent on power import from Eastern region.

Presently, he said the installed capacity of NER Grid is approximately 4.5 GW, which is around 150% of Maximum Demand of the region.

Transmission sector has also witnessed rapid growth post-independence. During independence, small isolated power network used to be there. Presently, India has the world’s largest synchronized national Grid with 4,33,510 circuit km of transmission lines at various voltage levels like 765kV, 400kV, 220k, + / – 500kV and +/- 800 kV.

As far as Power Demand is concerned, Demand met of NER Grid has increased from around 1.5 GW in 2009-10 to approximately 3 GW in 2019-20 and 690 MU/month in 2009-10 to 1360 MU/month in 2019-20, i.e. about 100% growth in last 10 years.

A slew of regulatory and policy reforms has also been observed in Indian power sector in the last two decades. These includes, inter alia, implementation of ABT mechanism, Open access in transmission system, introduction of power exchanges, DSM regulations, introduction of Renewable Energy Certificate mechanism etc, he said.

Shikato said that one of the recent remarkable initiatives in Indian power sector is launch of Real Time market from June 1, 2020.

“Before this, market option available for power procurement/sale was Day Ahead Market. However, with the launch of RTM, Constituents across India are getting an option to meet their energy requirements closer to real-time operation,” he said.

He said the issues which were left out in the last TCC meeting more than a year ago needs to be followed up and resolve while confirming the minutes of 20th TCC meeting held on September 12, 2019 at Guwahati.

Earlier, Moa Aier, Chief Engineer (D&R), power department Nagaland delivered welcome address.

On February 4, Nagaland’s Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio will address the meeting at 10:30 am at Hotel Vivor, Kohima.

Source: https://morungexpress.com/ne-officials-to-resolve-common-issues-for-betterment-of-power-sector