India's Power Sector

The Technology & Economic Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to Technological and Economic developments in India. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

There's a significant coal shortage in the Northern and Western grids, due to the increase in plant load factor since summer, and greater generation capacity . IIP data shows that electricity output has risen >10% in successive months. This has decreased the coal supply to several plants, to less than a week's stock. Coal India is threatening a 'work to rule' strike to prevent a stake sale, and demanding that previously allocated coal blocks to private miners be reallocated to them. Swift and decisive action by the government is required here.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

That is the correct need based target....

Both DFC absolutely have to be operational by then.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/w ... 388839.ece
To ensure adequate supply of coal for power plants, state-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) set a target of 1 billion tonnes of coal production by 2019, from current levels of 500 million tonnes.
Picklu
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2128
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Picklu »

There was a study showing 90% of the carrying capacity of the IR is used by the power companies carrying coal. Can not find that online study now .

And this year rail budget ignores DFC completely focussing on bullet train. What is going to power those trains if not enough power is generated?

As per the latest news, the eastern leg of the DFC is delayed by several years and the cost has also gone up. And the coal blocks are mostly on the eastern leg in WB-Bihar border.
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

Data on the power crisis:
Defusing the power crisis
About 9,000 MW of commissioned power plants have had to be shut due to non-availability of coal, over and above the 11,000 MW of new generation capacity that is lying idle for want of fuel.
20GW idle for want of coal. CEA August 2014 data shows total installed capacity of 254GW, of which thermal power is 154GW, and 20GW of that is idle, based on above data. Further capacity is offstream for maintenance and other plant load factor management concerns.
deejay
Forum Moderator
Posts: 4024
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by deejay »

Picklu Ji, just a small nit-pick WB -Jharkhand border not WB-Bihar border. :) But that does not change the fact that you are right.
Picklu wrote: As per the latest news, the eastern leg of the DFC is delayed by several years and the cost has also gone up. And the coal blocks are mostly on the eastern leg in WB-Bihar border.
Supratik
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6470
Joined: 09 Nov 2005 10:21
Location: USA

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Supratik »

IIRC, DFC funding is already taken care off - so nothing to show in budget.
Picklu
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2128
Joined: 25 Feb 2004 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Picklu »

Supratikji, that is what I thought based on the link you provided at the time of railway budget. But more recent news shows that huge cost escalation has happened (almost 3 times) and hence no progress.
member_20292
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2059
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by member_20292 »

Spoke to an NTPC employee today. Essentially said that pvt players have been alotted a lot of coal mines, but they are neither digging nor producing the power because noone will buy it from them at the rate at which they will be producing the power.

NTPC has , ten years ago, got into Hydropower as well.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Picklu wrote:Supratikji, that is what I thought based on the link you provided at the time of railway budget. But more recent news shows that huge cost escalation has happened (almost 3 times) and hence no progress.
This is correct the DFCIL is not a 'national project' so does not have unlimited funds. It is more like a metro. Japan's financing is not unlimited either.

Here is what the site itself says. 2:1 ratio means an equity component of Rs 26,666.66 Crore at a minimum per latest estimate. If the project is to be completed in 5 years the equity component alone will be ~ Rs 6,000 crore per year. AFAIK nothing like this has been allocated yet. This not considering the working capital and interest repayment costs, which could easily tack on crores every year.

http://www.dfccil.gov.in/dfccil_app/Project_funding.jsp
The project cost for both the corridors was initially estimated by RITES, in January 2007 as Rs. 28,000 crore. This cost was subsequently revised to about Rs. 37,000 crore by Japan International Cooperation Agency in its feasibility Report submitted to the Ministry of Railways in October 2007. When revised to 2009 costs, the two corridors are likely to cost in the region of Rs.54,000 crore, resulting in a project completion cost of about Rs. 80,000 crore in 2017-2018. The cost for the project will be funded by a combination of debt from bilateral/multilateral agencies, equity from Ministry of Railways and Public Private Partnership. The capital structure of DFCCIL will entail a debt equity ratio of 2:1.
pankajs
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14746
Joined: 13 Aug 2009 20:56

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 038194.cms

Government mulling to offer package to kickstart 16,000 MW of gasfired power plants
Image
NEW DELHI: The government plans to offer a rescue package to kickstart 16,000 MW of gasfired power plants that are idling after an investment of about Rs 64,000 crore by providing fuel and subsidy to make them financially viable. This will benefit Lanco Infratech, Essar Power, Reliance Power, GVK Group, GMR Energy and other companies that had set up plants on the basis of official projections of gas availability.

Official sources said the package includes a proposal that any additional gas produced in the next four years (above the current level of output) should be supplied to power stations. This should be pooled with imported liquefied natural gas. As LNG costs about $15 per unit, compared with the prevailing domestic gas rate of $4.2, the government plans to provide subsidy so that electricity is not too costly for distribution companies.

Officials said the subsidy would ensure gas-based electricity is sold at Rs 5.50 per unit, as per the package that has been prepared jointly by the oil and power ministries and will be sent to the Cabinet for approval. The coal cess, which is deposited in the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF), will be used to subsidise the gas-fired power plants.The subsidy would be provided only to plants located in states that agree to waive value added tax (VAT) and central sales tax (CST) on natural gas, officials said. The package also includes scrapping all taxes on domestic and imported natural gas consumed by power companies, and a cut in marketing margins and pipeline tariffs for gas transportation.

The power sector will be given priority in allocation of incremental gas from blocks awarded under the National Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) till 2018-19. The planned measures will come as a relief to the power sector which has been under stress as the shortage of coal and natural gas has affected about 35,000 mw of capacity, mostly built by the private sector.

The sector faced another challenge when the Supreme Court cancelled the allocation of almost all coal mines to private companies, putting a question mark on fuel supply to planned or operating power stations with a combined capacity of more than 25,000 mw. The Association of Power Producers had estimated in June that gas-fired plants have a capacity of 24,149 mw, involving an investment of Rs 1.2 lakh crore and debt exposure of Rs 85,000 crore.

"Majority of these projects are on the verge of becoming non-performing assets (NPAs) due to non-availability of gas," the association wrote to the government in June. Last year, an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) had decided that gas-based power plants be given preference till 2015-16 in allocating additional gas output from NELP blocks after meeting the 31.5 million metric standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) requirement of fertiliser units.

"NELP gas available to the power sector is quite low. We plan to seek extension of the EGoM directive by another three years from 2015-16. We will also ask the Union Cabinet if some additional gas from non-NELP blocks can be earmarked for the power plants," a senior government official said. Data with the oil ministry shows availability of 4.53 mmscmd additional gas output next fiscal from NELP fields, 13.30 mmscmd in 2016-17, 18.19 mmscmd in 2017-18 and 28.74 mmscmd in 2018-19.

Total incremental gas output including non-NELP sources is estimated to be around 50 mmscmd. The domestic gas will be pooled with imported LNG and sold at an average price to power stations to help them run at 40% of capacity and recover fixed costs.

The official said the government is considering two options for pooling prices of domestic and international gas: Pooling prices for all the 24,149 mw gas-based power plants to reduce the burden on exchequer or pooling prices only for 16,107 mw stranded capacity to spare the operating plants from price rise.
hanumadu
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5168
Joined: 11 Nov 2002 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by hanumadu »

pankajs wrote:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 038194.cms

Government mulling to offer package to kickstart 16,000 MW of gasfired power plants
Official sources said the package includes a proposal that any additional gas produced in the next four years (above the current level of output) should be supplied to power stations. This should be pooled with imported liquefied natural gas. As LNG costs about $15 per unit, compared with the prevailing domestic gas rate of $4.2, the government plans to provide subsidy so that electricity is not too costly for distribution companies.
Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper for these companies to pay RIL the $8/BTU they want and get the gas from them without involving the govt. That way, the govt. can be free from the blame of raising prices while the power companies get their gas.
The subsidy would be provided only to plants located in states that agree to waive value added tax (VAT) and central sales tax (CST) on natural gas, officials said. The package also includes scrapping all taxes on domestic and imported natural gas consumed by power companies, and a cut in marketing margins and pipeline tariffs for gas transportation.
Basically, gas based power is not viable in India unless the consumer is ready to pay exorbitant prices or the govt. subsidizes to a great extent.
"NELP gas available to the power sector is quite low. We plan to seek extension of the EGoM directive by another three years from 2015-16. We will also ask the Union Cabinet if some additional gas from non-NELP blocks can be earmarked for the power plants," a senior government official said. Data with the oil ministry shows availability of 4.53 mmscmd additional gas output next fiscal from NELP fields, 13.30 mmscmd in 2016-17, 18.19 mmscmd in 2017-18 and 28.74 mmscmd in 2018-19.
Hopefully we will see them operating at full capacity once additional gas comes on line.
Rahul Mehta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2577
Joined: 22 Nov 2001 12:31
Location: Ahmedabad, India --- Bring JurySys in India
Contact:

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Rahul Mehta »

We are crude/gas deficient country. We import almost 65% to 75% crude we consume. If we have spare gas, we should convert it into petrol/diesel/CNG etc and use for vehicles. For electricity, we should use coal, hydro, nuclear ONLY and not gas..

Making gas based electricity plant in India shows extent of what is ailing decision making process in India.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

The only reason we are gas short is because the majority of our gas deposits are still under control of our Dinosaur PSU. Even in the prolific KG basin 90% + of the acreage is owned by the PSU's on which they are sitting and unable to produce anything. The dog in the manger attitutude of these Dinosaurs needs to be terminated pronto. In fact, shut these monsters down or release the acreage pronto and we won't be gas short anymore.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... nistry-dgh
ONGC has faced widespread criticism for not producing any gas from this block in many years. Reliance, which operates the adjoining KG-D6 block, has produced natural gas from its deep-sea field for five years. But it has faced severe scrutiny by the national auditor and the government.

Officials say that the earliest possibility of any gas from the ONGC block may take place only in 2017. While ONGC has not produced any gas, it has taken an aggressive position and accused Reliance of drawing gas from the state-firm's fields. It has even taken the oil ministry to the court accusing of not protecting ONGC's interests. ONGC executives say the government is probably acting under pressure from the prime minister, who wants domestic output to rise.

Earlier this year, RIL told the Supreme Court that vested interests were targeting the company that had done the maximum exploration and produced gas quickly while there was no scrutiny of state-run ONGC, which found gas in the same basin, raised its cost many times and produced nothing in 18 years. :rotfl:
jamwal
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 5727
Joined: 19 Feb 2008 21:28
Location: Somewhere Else
Contact:

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by jamwal »

http://thenumerateindian.com/post/99759 ... he-numbers
India’s power generation problems: by the numbers

Image
Coal-based thermal plants are the primary driver of growth in India’s power generation. Hydro and Nuclear power have largely been stagnant in the recent past. And while renewables have been rising rapidly, they only account for about 12% of India’s overall capacity. In view of this, coal-based thermal plants will be the focus of this analysis.

We have a problem
Image

Image
pankajs
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14746
Joined: 13 Aug 2009 20:56

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 825800.cms

Adani, Jindal Power, Sterlite and GMR pull out of UMPPs race
NEW DELHI: Adani, Jindal Power, Sterlite and GMR have pulled out of the race for ultra mega power projects in Odisha and Tamil Nadu, leaving only state-run NTPC in the fray for the proposed 4,000 MW size plants.

...
Odisha UMPP is a pit-head power project. Based on domestic coal to be sourced from allocated captive coal blocks, it is expected to cost around Rs 25,000 crore.

The Cheyyur UMPP is a coastal power project, based on imported coal, with an expected investment of about Rs 24,200 crore.

...
Under the revised norms, any escalation in cost of fuel will be passed on to the consumer as higher tariff and the companies executing projects will have to mandatorily source equipment from domestic manufacturers.
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

Mandatory sourcing of power equipment from domestic manufacturers is a very good rider. It should be combined with additional capacity expansion at BHEL.
member_20292
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2059
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by member_20292 »

Theo_Fidel wrote:The only reason we are gas short is because the majority of our gas deposits are still under control of our Dinosaur PSU. Even in the prolific KG basin 90% + of the acreage is owned by the PSU's on which they are sitting and unable to produce anything. The dog in the manger attitutude of these Dinosaurs needs to be terminated pronto. In fact, shut these monsters down or release the acreage pronto and we won't be gas short anymore.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... nistry-dgh
Thus, if we keep the national assets with PSUs, the buggers don't produce fast enough.

If keep allot them to private players, then the chances of many Bellary brothers selling national assets to China by the bushel arises.

What is the solution?
Supratik
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6470
Joined: 09 Nov 2005 10:21
Location: USA

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Supratik »

So the concept of building power plants on the cheap with Chinese junk is being dumped. The only problem is domestic capacity constraint of power plant equipment.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

A critical development. S-CO2 technology is coming to market.
this promises a move to the much more efficient Brayton cycle vs the present inefficient Rankine cycle.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/toshiba-s ... 00892.html
Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that it will supply a first-of-a-kind supercritical CO2 turbine to a demonstration plant being built in Texas, USA. The plant will be developed by NET Power, LLC, a U.S. venture, together with CB&I, the most complete energy infrastructure focused company in the world, Exelon Corporation, one of the leading competitive energy providers in the U.S., and 8 Rivers Capital, the inventor of the unique supercritical CO2 power cycle that will be demonstrated by this plant. The turbine is an essential part of the system, and Toshiba will start delivering the key equipment in August 2016. The plant is expected to enter the commissioning stage later in 2016.

The new supercritical CO2 power cycle system utilizes high temperature and high pressure gas at the turbine inlet. In order to cope with these conditions, Toshiba has utilized material specifically developed for use in high temperature steam turbines together with technology derived from its combustion and cooling technology used in gas turbines. The combustor has been designed by Toshiba to cope with a gas pressure of 300 bars, which is more than 10 times the gas pressure utilized in conventional gas turbines.

The system utilizes supercritical CO2 as a working fluid to produce low-cost electricity while eliminating emissions of NOx, CO2, and other pollutants. CO2 is collected at high-pressure without requiring additional carbon-capture equipment or processes, enabling full carbon-capture without increasing the cost of electricity.

Since 2012, Toshiba has been developing the new turbine and combustor for the system together with NET Power, CB&I, Exelon Corporation, and 8 Rivers Capital. The five companies have now completed major agreements to build a 25MW gross electric (50MWt) demonstration plant in Texas. Through the successful completion of operating tests, the demonstration plant is intended to provide the basis for the construction of the first 295MWe full-scale commercial plant.

Toshiba and its partners will promote sales of this new power system worldwide, with a special focus on the U.S. and the Middle East, where there is strong demand for EOR. Going forward, Toshiba will continue to contribute to the global environment by supplying highly efficient and environmentally friendly power generation systems.
vivek.rao
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3775
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by vivek.rao »

mahadevbhu wrote:
Theo_Fidel wrote:The only reason we are gas short is because the majority of our gas deposits are still under control of our Dinosaur PSU. Even in the prolific KG basin 90% + of the acreage is owned by the PSU's on which they are sitting and unable to produce anything. The dog in the manger attitutude of these Dinosaurs needs to be terminated pronto. In fact, shut these monsters down or release the acreage pronto and we won't be gas short anymore.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... nistry-dgh
Thus, if we keep the national assets with PSUs, the buggers don't produce fast enough.

If keep allot them to private players, then the chances of many Bellary brothers selling national assets to China by the bushel arises.

What is the solution?
Hand it over to Rahul Mehta :rotfl:
Pratyush
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12195
Joined: 05 Mar 2010 15:13

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Pratyush »

Trouble for Modi govt: Coal strike stops output at over 60% mines; unions refuse to budge

The power situation may worsen if the strike continues for more than 10 days.
Aditya_V
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14332
Joined: 05 Apr 2006 16:25

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Aditya_V »

Pratyush wrote:Trouble for Modi govt: Coal strike stops output at over 60% mines; unions refuse to budge

The power situation may worsen if the strike continues for more than 10 days.
Who controls these unions - left and INC?
krishnan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 7342
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 12:58
Location: 13° 04' N , 80° 17' E

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by krishnan »

congress is deep rooted in these
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

The strike is over.
Modi Passes Thatcher Test as Indian Coal Union Strike Crumbles
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced down the first major opposition to his economic agenda as coal unions called off a two-day-old strike that had threatened to paralyze the nation.

The unions at the world’s biggest coal miner, Coal India Ltd. (COAL), agreed to end the planned five-day action late yesterday after a seven-hour meeting with Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi. The government will establish a committee with labor representatives on it to look into the unions’ demands, Goyal said. Concerns about a potential privatization of Coal India were “unfounded,” he said.

Modi’s cabinet in October issued an executive order that included a provision to allow private companies to enter into the mining and selling of coal. Analysts consider the move crucial to boosting India’s coal output.

“We have explained to them the rationale behind the ordinance and have assured them that Coal India’s and its employees’ interests will always be protected,” Goyal said at a joint press briefing. “The unions have vowed to help the company make up for the output loss in the past two days.”

The end of the strike with the ordinance unchanged means that Modi’s government has stood its ground, said Debasish Mishra, a senior director at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. in Mumbai.

The labor action was the biggest in India in four decades, and unions said it involved most of the company’s about 300,000 workers.
Vamsee
BRFite
Posts: 685
Joined: 16 Mar 2001 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Vamsee »

This is a very good overview of what is going on in the power sector.

Switching back to power
But there is a silver lining in Madhya Pradesh's case. In 2009, the state was facing a shortage of 15 per cent and battling up to 14-hour power cuts. In 2014, the state met all its demand. And its electricity regulator projects the state distribution companies will start making profits in 2017.
Madhya Pradesh's transformation was enabled by its decision to change inefficient transmission equipment and, like Gujarat, segregate the subsidised farm load from the main feeder under the Atal Gram Jyoti Yojna. In 2010, the state assembly resolved to reduce transmission and distribution (T&D) losses from 37 per cent to less than nine per cent by the end of 2013/14. "The state government instead of taking help of the Union government (then UPA-2) did the financial restructuring itself," Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told BT.
Coal India will have to increase production from 463 million tonnes in 2013/14 to the targeted one billion tonnes by 2017. Goyal is throwing his weight behind putting the first lot of coal mines on e-auction. Many of these mines were among the 204 mines for which the Supreme Court cancelled licences in September. Goyal is also putting pressure on Coal India to increase output from existing mines. A former CIL chairman says new equipment and technology is being introduced in mining to boost production. "Plus, efforts are being made to increase surveillance and vigilance on 'coal mafia'," he says.
Many would now agree that with the appointment of the banker-turned-politician Goyal as minister for both power and coal, the Narendra Modi government has tried to resolve this problem. NTPC's Choudhury says, "I always thought that it was very difficult to look for an owner in a PSU. But not now. Today, we can sense there is an owner - the government - we can look up to."
Prabhu's appointment was particularly interesting. Prior to his appointment as railway minister, he was heading an advisory panel of the power ministry. His two major recommendations -- swapping of coal linkage and installation of three vital rail links -- can unlock roughly 300 million tonnes coal by 2017. Now it's up to him to walk the talk. The railway lines have been delayed by a decade due to one reason or the other.
Javadekar, who initially was shying away from environment ministry, made favourable amendments in the guidelines for environment and forest clearances. These include provisions such as exemption of compensatory afforestation requirement for projects in states with more than 33 per cent forest cover (instead of 50 per cent earlier) of total geographical area, and decentralisation of the process of granting forest clearance to regionally empowered committees in case of projects such as transmission lines.
Sinha, meanwhile, is trying to work out taxation issues related to gas pooling, which may eventually help 23 gigawatt of stranded capacity to operate. Dharmendra Pradhan-led petroleum ministry had earlier worked out the formula of gas pricing and fixed it at $5.61 per million metric British thermal units, which might increase the cost of power generation by 17 per cent.
ShauryaT
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5350
Joined: 31 Oct 2005 06:06

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by ShauryaT »

Miles to go.

Missing the bus on coal
Coal shortages are painfully reflected in more than 20,000 MW of electricity generation capacity remaining unutilised. It is expected that India will import almost 200 mt annually of non-coking coal in the next 10 years. This will be supremely ironical because, despite the woefully underexplored geology, the country possesses proven coal reserves of more than 100 billion tonnes.

Moreover, our coal reserves may remain unutilised because of the ever tightening globally imposed carbon constraint and the exponentially rising civil society pressure against negative impacts on the environment and population. Coal reserves are in effect a wasting resource. Ground realities require us to jettison the present policy regime and replace it with a wholly new paradigm. Incrementalism and tinkering at the margins or reacting to court decisions will not serve our national interest.

In the light of these ground realities, clearly enunciated policy goals for the coal sector would be: (i) maximising non-coking coal output in the shortest time and eliminating shortages and imports; (ii) adopting latest mining technologies to minimise environmental degradation and population displacement; (iii) introducing latest coal combustion and carbon sequestration technologies to maximise pithead power generation. This avoids transporting poor quality coal over long distances and bypassing railway connectivity problems; (iv) raising productivity to make coal mining globally competitive; and (v) attracting investment for geological exploration as India remains a woefully underexplored region with reserves having been identified only for an average depth of 30 metres below the surface.

These objectives would be best achieved by attracting large-scale private investment by specialised mining companies that can undertake geological exploration, mining operations and transportation using latest technologies and at globally competitive costs. At the same time, it is important to ensure that profit-maximising private sector mining companies are effectively restrained from practices that will damage the environment and trample the rights of indigenous people. A robust regulatory mechanism, effectively implemented, can ensure that these two ostensibly conflicting objectives of attracting large-scale private investment and minimising environmental degradation and human costs can both be achieved.

Given the present poor state of public governance, effective and transparent regulation will be achieved only with the active involvement of civil society. This alone will prevent regulatory norms from being compromised by a nexus of crony capitalists and corrupt officials. We already have a successful example of the involvement of civil society organisations in the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sarak Yojana, in which it helped achieve the desired quality of road construction.

The Supreme Court’s decision of August 2014 provided the new government with a golden opportunity to put a comprehensive policy in place. Admittedly, there was urgency in addressing the vexed situation in which the industry was landed after the Supreme Court rulings. However, seven months is surely sufficient time for designing a robust and comprehensive policy response. But to do so required a change in the policy mindset, from merely reacting to Supreme Court judgments to taking the long-term and more holistic view of the goals and ground realities.

I am afraid that with the twice promulgated Coal Mines Special Provision (Second) Ordinance (the first was passed in October and the second on 29 December) not only has an opportunity to come up with an innovative policy framework been lost but we may end up with another round of costly litigation.

More important, the ordinance does nothing to attract private investment and technology by specialised mining companies that produce coal for commercial sale as opposed to producing it for self-consumption. After repeated readings of the Ordinance, I do not find any provision for large-scale commercial production of coal in the country. This rules out coal mining except by public sector companies, as envisaged in the Nationalisation Act of 1973. The Ordinance only legalises coal mining by private sector actual users, which was hitherto done by an executive order that the Court found illegal.

The Ordinance does not address the five goals enunciated above. Its objective, as spelled out in the first paragraph, is merely to ensure continuity of coal mining. It reinforces CIL’s dominant position by requiring that ‘actual users’ who mine coal surrender their excess production to CIL, not to other users!

The high reserve price, in a period of sharply declining world coal prices, subsequently announced may further discourage serious mining companies. The Ordinance does not even mention the need for environment and human rights protection and enhancing productivity with the use of frontline technology. There is no mention of putting in place a regulatory framework, let alone involving civil society organisations for making it transparent and effective. In short, it is a reactive policy document that misses the woods for the trees or ignores the national interest to address contingent circumstances.

The Ordinance will likely result in continuation of domestic coal scarcity, rising imports, use of backward technologies, poorly paid mining workers, environmental degradation and continued uncertainty about private sector investment. The sad spectre of coal being carried on bicycles for daily sale in Ranchi by hundreds of ‘illegal miners’ will continue. This is likely to be repeated in other key sectors like iron ore, steel, natural gas and so on. It is time we recognised the need to overthrow the present policy mindset and replace it with one in sync with the 21st century. Hopefully the NITI Ayog will be tasked to do so.
hanumadu
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5168
Joined: 11 Nov 2002 12:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by hanumadu »

Coal block auction begins: Ambanis, Adanis in the race
Around 134 bidders have cleared the initial stages of eligibility for coal auction for 21 blocks put up by the government.
VinodTK
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2982
Joined: 18 Jun 2000 11:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by VinodTK »

US companies pledge to build 20 GW of renewable energy in India
NEW DELHI: US-based SunEdison and First Solar on Sunday committed to build more than 20,000 megawatts of clean energy capacity in India by 2022, a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to meet ambitious renewable targets.

The companies announced the plans at the beginning of India's first major renewable energy conference, where Modi's government is trying to drum up support from investors to reach a target of 100,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022, a 33-fold rise from today's level.

SunEdison said it would build 15,200 MW of solar and wind power capacity by 2022, while First Solar made a commitment to develop 5,000 MW of solar by 2019.
Paul
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3800
Joined: 25 Jun 1999 11:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Paul »

Coal blocks e-auction amount crosses Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Cumulative amount at the end of 3rd day of 2nd round stands at Rs 152419 lakh crore
pankajs
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14746
Joined: 13 Aug 2009 20:56

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

Mods pls remove if this does not belong here.

Himalayan Megastructure (Karcham Wangtoo Hydroelectric Project) - India's largest Hydropower Project (After 42 mins, it repeats some part. Ignore)

Vipul
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3727
Joined: 15 Jan 2005 03:30

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Vipul »

An end to power cuts.

searchers at IIT Madras come up with an innovative solution to link decentralised solar-based DC power to grid-based AC power which has the potential to provide 24×7 access to electricity in homes and put an an end to power cuts. By R. RAMACHANDRAN
IF you happen to visit the Electrical Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras you will be surprised to find that the electrical appliances in the rooms of the department operate on direct current (DC), and not alternating current (AC), which is the standard the world over for power transmission and usage, both industrial and domestic. It is an innovation using solar power, which has been conceptualised and executed by two professors from the department, Ashok Jhunjhunwala and Bhaskar Ramamurthi, who is also the Director of IIT-M. This has been done in a few other departments and in some of the hostels of the institute as well.

By linking the concept of decentralised solar-based DC power to the grid-based AC power, a team of institute researchers from IIT-M, led by Jhunjhunwala and Ramamurthi, has come up with an innovative solution that has the potential to provide 24×7 access to electricity to all homes. This could be a game changer in a country where about 60-70 million homes still do not have access to electricity at all and large parts of the rest suffer daily power cuts ranging from a few hours to 10-12 hours.Those who are familiar with the work of the duo over the past decade and a half know that they are basically experts in communication engineering, and not in power engineering at all, and would seem to be somewhat unlikely people to come up with such a revolutionary solution.

And 24×7 access would seem like an unbelievable dream. During the late 1990s, the two developed the Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) technology for wider telecom access in developing countries through their corDECT solution, which is now widely deployed in India and 15 other countries. In fact, at the IIT-M, Jhunjhunwala heads the Telematics and Computer Network Group (TeNet), which has nothing to do with solar power or other power engineering solutions.

So how did they get into this? “About two years back,” Jhunjhunwala said in his address at the recently held annual meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences in Chennai, “when there were serious power cuts in Chennai, lasting anywhere from two hours to 12-14 hours, we were all getting fed up. Bhaskar and I felt that something must be done about it. So we started working on it. A colleague said solar power was the solution. We started looking at solar power to see what could be done. Solar power projects are being implemented in State after State with all kinds of subsidies. But we were amazed and aghast at how poor and inefficient the whole thing was. How nobody had applied any thought. Everything comes from outside the country; just plug it in without even applying your mind to it. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.”

The IIT-M technology sprung from the realisation that AC supply for basic domestic and commercial power needs, rather than DC, is a highly inefficient way of using energy in the present times. Historically, AC has come to be the worldwide choice for using electricity because it allows for an increase or decrease of voltage using transformers, and this makes it possible to haul large amounts of power over long distances with cheap infrastructure and with minimum energy loss owing to thermal heating. Accordingly, most of the industrial and domestic electric appliances, such as fans, lights and water pumps, run on AC.

But, with the advent of power electronics, this basic disadvantage of DC no longer exists. More importantly, all electronic devices that one uses today, such as LED/LCD (light-emitting diode/liquid crystal display) TV, laptops, LED lamps and mobile phones/chargers, all run on low-voltage DC. But homes and offices are still powered by AC. So to use them, the AC supply is converted to DC using converters, adapters or chargers, which are often built into appliances. But the efficiency of conversion of these interfaces is poor, ranging anywhere from 25 to 50 per cent, says Jhunjhunwala.

Solar power, particularly what is generated through photovoltaics (PV), produces DC power and the batteries used to store solar power also deliver only DC. With the increasing move towards decentralised solar power using rooftop PV panels, DC-based appliances, such as refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines and fans, using brushless DC (BLDC) motors have begun to appear in the market. However, the basic electric supply grid infrastructure continues to be AC-based. Therefore, the use of DC-based appliances in grid-connected homes, even if they are augmented with rooftop solar power, becomes difficult because the load is AC-based. DC power from solar panels has to be converted to AC and synchronised with the grid and be reconverted to DC to run the connected load. So DC/AC and AC/DC conversion becomes necessary at different stages even when we use solar DC power. If we add a battery, which is usually the case as solar power fluctuates greatly, this conversion is once again required for charging and discharging the battery because the battery stores and delivers only DC.

Each conversion, according to Jhunjhunwala, causes a loss of 10-15 per cent of power. So when solar power with battery is used, there is a loss of about 30-45 per cent. Figure 1, for example, illustrates how, in a typical situation with solar power utilisation, AC↔DC conversion inefficiencie↔s add up to result in a huge net loss of energy. Even in off-grid homes (OGH) with rooftop solar power, the problem remains the same because electronic devices such as LED lamps, laptops and mobile chargers although they run on DC are designed to be plugged into AC sockets and other grid supply interfaces. So, at the electronic device end, there is a further loss because this AC/DC conversion is once again required.

“This must change and home-load must move towards DC if energy consumption has to be brought down,” points out Jhunjhunwala. For example, while a 72 watt AC fan at the lowest speed will consume about 60 W of power, an equivalent 30 W BLDC fan consumes only 9 W. Similarly, LED lamps are twice as efficient as CFLs for a given light output. While a standard 1.2 m CFL consumes about 36 W, an equivalent LED lamp consumes only about 15W. LED lamps can be dimmed as per requirement, which further reduces power consumption. According to him, the cost of the appliances themselves will not differ too much if DC becomes the norm and the appliances are produced in large volumes. “Use of DC-powered energy-efficient devices will bring down the consumption by 50 per cent,” he adds. Solar power can be used directly to drive the DC load or to charge the battery whose DC power can then drive the load.

And this is what has basically been done within the IIT-M campus in order to demonstrate the use of solar DC electricity directly to power lights, fans and other electronic devices. The solar-powered DC electricity supply system (Figure 2) developed by IIT-M has a rooftop PV panel, supplemented by a battery, which is designed to have 48 V +/− 3V output that feeds a local DC grid operating at that voltage. A 48 V line inside the house/building powers the DC devices and appliances. All AC↔DC conversions are thus eliminated in this system. Obviously, this can be replicated in a straightforward manner in OGHs with decentralised rooftop solar power.

Two Kolkata-based scientists, Parthasarathi Majumdar of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University and Sekhar Banerjee, an independent researcher, have also been working along similar lines to use solar power to drive home appliances and devices at low voltage DC. Their particular innovation is in replacing the battery with a solar-charged supercapacitor, also known as Electrochemical or Electric Double Layer Capacitors (EDLC), which are more efficient and can go through a far greater number of charge-discharge cycles than conventional batteries. Using a bank of such capacitors, they have even designed and built models of supercapacitor-driven railcar, cyclerickshaw and ferry. However, the duo is seriously constrained by lack of resources to conduct large-scale trials or widen the scope of their development. “On our part, not having access to well-equipped research laboratories confines us to making low-end prototype models,” they wrote in a recent paper describing their work.

The IIT-M technology demonstrator actually goes a step further. In situations where grid supply is available, the system can supplement the grid by providing backup DC electricity from the solar-powered battery. The grid supply AC power is converted to DC at 48 volts (using an AC/DC converter) to match the solar DC and integrated with the grid. A subsystem called OGH-controller, an IIT-patented device, integrates the 48 V DC power from the PV panel, the battery and the grid (where available) in such a way that dependence on the battery is minimised. The technology, therefore, can be used both for OGH situations and for near-OGH (limited access with extended power cuts of 12-14 hours a day) situations. The OGH-controller also enables metering of the DC power consumption.

The system (Figure 2) has two output lines: a main 48 V line and an emergency output line. When the grid has long blackouts and there is no significant solar output as well because of cloudy or rainy conditions, the main line is cut off below a certain level of depth of discharge (DOD) of the battery. The emergency line, which can power a couple of devices, say a light and a fan, can be used for long hours even when the battery is low. The OGH deployment, say with a 125 W solar panel and a 200-500 watt-hours (Wh) battery, in each house will include an LED tubelight, an LED bulb, one BLDC fan, one remote to operate the fan and the tubelight, one socket and one mobile charger. The solution (with 100 Wh) is designed to operate a BLDC fan at full speed, the tubelight and the bulb for about 10 hrs on a normal day and using up only 50 per cent of the battery power (50 per cent DOD). At reduced speed and reduced brightness of the lamps, the power can last longer. Once the battery is low, the emergency line takes over, which can last for about 24 hours.

The IIT-M has, in association with a couple of manufacturers, developed the DC lights, fans, remotes, chargers, sockets and solar panels required for the OGH solution. According to Jhunjhunwala, specifications for these, including the operating standards for these 48V DC appliances (which are being evolved), will be made public and any manufacturer will be eligible, in a tender, to supply these products.

Besides the IIT-M campus, this technology has been implemented on a pilot basis in Gudalur in the Nilgiris (20 houses), and installations are ongoing in Irakum island in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, Dampada in Odisha, Hanskali in West Bengal and a police station and an ayurveda hospital in Chennai. Actually, the OGH installation in Gudalur is based on a cluster homes model. In this, one OGH system is deployed in a cluster of two to four homes and the main components, which drive the cluster, are deployed in one of the houses. The biggest challenge in this deployment was installing the system in the kuccha tribal homes. The other challenge was teaching the tribal people to use a remote to operate the LED tubelight.

Power for all
There are about 250 million houses in India. If you install a 500 W (0.5 kW) solar panel (measuring about 5 m) in every home, with insolation (exposure to sun’s rays) of about 1,500 hours a year, the total power generated will be about 190 (250 million x 0.5 kW x 1,500) GW a year, which is roughly the annual domestic power consumption. “Decentralised solar [with DC-driven appliances and devices] can thus make a huge difference. It has the potential to free the grid from all domestic demand,” says Jhunjhunwala. If the above DC power system is implemented widely, it will help bring down the overall energy consumption in the country greatly.

The IIT-M group hopes to extend it to cover as many as 100,000 off-grid/near-off-grid homes in different parts of the country. To be able to achieve this target, government support is necessary and the institute has offered this innovative solution to the Ministry of Power, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC).

Of course, there is a cost involved to implement, run and maintain these DC systems. According to rough estimates by IIT-M, at the pilot stage (100,000 homes) of implementation, cost per home is about Rs.20,000-30,000 (including five-year maintenance) depending on the terrain, kind of houses and density. For 100,000 homes, the total cost works out to about Rs.300 crore. This, they hope, will be met through a mix of government (MNRE) subsidies routed through the institute, funding from State governments and other government bodies, private donors and corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes.

No more blackouts

Although IIT-M’s OGH/near-OGH system does provide uninterrupted DC (UDC) power by providing a low-level battery backup in situations where grid connectivity exists, it does not really solve the basic problem that the two professors set out to tackle, namely getting rid of blackouts. “This also does not create a pull factor for solar power,” Jhunjhunwala adds. According to him, it was a former Secretary of Power who pointed out that what they had done went only halfway. “We needed something more innovative to address the blackout issue and at the same time provide the necessary technology push for decentralised solar power and energy-efficient DC appliances.”

The question that the IIT-M team asked was, instead of a mere back-up of a solar power battery at the consumer end, which at best can light up one bulb or a fan, can one do something at the grid supply or sub-station end? The idea that the IIT-M group subsequently came up with, if implemented on a large scale, can get rid of blackouts and has the potential to be a game changer in the power scenario in the country. Of course, besides technology push, a policy push is also required to achieve the cherished goal. Hopefully, appropriate policy support will also be forthcoming to enable implementation of the idea on a countrywide scale.

So what is this breakthrough idea? The grid supply as it is today functions in an either/or mode: the grid is designed to carry either full power (normal, 100 per cent) or zero power (load-shedding/blackout, 0 per cent). The IIT-M technology involves the introduction of a new low-level AC power line (say at 10 per cent) and supply a minimum amount of DC power at 48 V to all homes 24×7 on the existing grid. Some tweaking at the substation will obviously be needed, which, according to Jhunjhunwala, will involve minimal changes in the grid at no great cost. This is called the “brown-out” mode.

At the substation, there will be two lines emerging from the distribution transformer, the usual 230 V line and a 90 V line. During the brown-out, only the latter would remain open. At the consumer end, the 90 V supply line is converted to a 48 V DC line by an AC/DC converter, which would then be similar to the earlier OGH situation. While the main 230 V AC line is cut off during this mode, the low power 48 V DC line remains “ON” all the time (Figure 3). Having two grid supply lines is not unfamiliar as most homes have separate lines for 5 amp and 15 A. This would be similar. This low-level limited power, according to the team, is small enough to be made available at all times, even in the worst power crisis situation.

What if consumers draw arbitrary amounts of power from this line resulting in a grid collapse? The main line should cut off automatically and instantaneously within a millisecond leaving the other line open, points out Jhunjhunwala. This issue of how to engineer this instantaneous cut-off bothered both Jhunjhunwala and Ramamurthi for a few months before they came up with an innovative solution.

When a blackout happens, there is a rapid drop in the voltage at the substation end. So when the voltage drops from 230 V by a factor 2.5 (90V), the system should signal a brown-out and cut off the main line. Through a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) mobile network system, the substation instantly signals to the home cluster the occurrence of the brown-out. The main line is cut-off and only the 10 per cent capacity line feeding DC power remains, from which the power you can draw is limited by design. “The idea of drop in voltage to do the normal-to-brown-out signalling was the Eureka moment for us,” Jhunjhunwala said. One may also ask whether 10 per cent power is sufficient for a household to function. Actually, a brown-out situation is quite like the OGH case, only that the DC supply is coming from the grid itself instead of a solar panel or a storage battery. Since one is using highly energy-efficient DC devices, as in the OGH case, a good number of household appliances can be operated.

According to Jhunjhunwala, the 48 UDC line, providing 100 W power per home, can support three lights, two fans (or one fan and one LED TV) and one mobile charger. And in case someone wants more, solar PV, with a battery support if needed, can be added. A 500 W solar PV can support five fans, three lights, two TVs, multiple mobile chargers and a laptop charger. For metering the DC consumption, an Uninterrupted DC Power Module (UDPM), which forms part of the installation, is used. It is done through a wireless system based on Bluetooth technology. Consumption data are transferred to an android mobile phone connected to the meter box via Bluetooth.

This brown-out technology has undergone extensive testing and trials at IIT-M and has also been successfully validated at Madhuranthakam near Chennai during December 2014. As many as 281 homes were covered, and this cluster in the neighbourhood remains lit even when the rest of the area has extended power cuts. According to Jhunjhunwala, the neighbouring areas, too, have taken an interest and would like the model replicated there. Brown-out technology installations are also ongoing in Telangana (Moinabad) Kerala (Thiruvanathapuram) and Odisha.

While large-scale deployment of the brown-out technology may not take off immediately as it involves government investment and perhaps some policy and regulatory issues, uninterrupted DC supply through the OGH/near-OGH technology, which does have a potential to bring down the electricity supply-demand gap significantly, can take off if there is requisite support from government agencies, including standardising of DC appliances and their efficiency rating by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and even grant of fiscal incentives to enable manufacturers to get into DC appliance production on a large scale.
Varoon Shekhar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2178
Joined: 03 Jan 2010 23:26

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

pankajs, just finished watching the documentary on the Karcham Wangtoo power project, from start to finish. Really good! Any idea where it was first shown, BBC, National Geographic, PBS, company video?
pankajs
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14746
Joined: 13 Aug 2009 20:56

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

Don't know ... the video seems to be from a master copy.
Rishirishi
BRFite
Posts: 1409
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 02:30

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Rishirishi »

Varoon Shekhar wrote:pankajs, just finished watching the documentary on the Karcham Wangtoo power project, from start to finish. Really good! Any idea where it was first shown, BBC, National Geographic, PBS, company video?
It resembles Discovery Channel. Worlds like "megastructure" are often used. It could also be a self financed promotional video.
RamaY
BRF Oldie
Posts: 17249
Joined: 10 Aug 2006 21:11
Location: http://bharata-bhuti.blogspot.com/

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by RamaY »

^^^ Vipul ji,

Thanks... Wow! Finally my dream of Energy independence may come to Desh....
Vayutuvan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12063
Joined: 20 Jun 2011 04:36

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Vayutuvan »

Paul wrote:Coal blocks e-auction amount crosses Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Cumulative amount at the end of 3rd day of 2nd round stands at Rs 152419 lakh crore :eek:
Paul: It should be Rs 152419 crore so that it is not madarssa math.
Vipul
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3727
Joined: 15 Jan 2005 03:30

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Vipul »

Indian power firms want ban on Chinese equipment.

Power transmission infrastructure in the country's 18 major cities could be potentially hacked leading to national security threats and major disruption of power if the concerns of a prominent trade body are to be believed.

Indian Electronics and Electricals Manufacturers' Association (IEEMA), the representative body of power equipment makers, has asked for a complete ban on Chinese equipment in the Indian power sector citing security concerns in a letter to National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. "Awarding projects related to power generation, transmission and distribution network to Chinese companies will be a serious threat to national security as the electric distribution system carry power to pipelines, water systems, telecommunications and other critical infrastructure, while also serving critical government or military facilities," said the letter by IEEMA to the national security advisor.

IEEMA alleged that over the past few years China has mounted repeated attacks on Indian computer networks and, therefore, information flowing in the Indian grid is more vulnerable to hacking than ever. Recently, the Philippines government prevented Chinese technicians from taking part in the country's electricity transmission projects because national security concerns.

To make the power distribution network efficient, state grids have installed Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA), which is an industrial control system to monitor and control industrial processes, mostly through remote technology. As many as 18 cities in India have awarded the contract to deploy SCADA to Chinese firms.
Kakkaji
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3866
Joined: 23 Oct 2002 11:31

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Kakkaji »

NTPC twin steps to double capacity
New Delhi, April 3: State-owned power producer NTPC Ltd plans to almost double its capacity in 10 years through expansion and acquisitions. The PSU has an installed capacity of around 43,000MW, a share of 17 per cent in India.

"We are working on 23,000MW of installed capacity, which will be commissioned over the next five years. We are also in the process of awarding another 15,000MW," NTPC chairman and managing director Arup Roy Choudhury said.

The utility plans to add 14,038MW during the 12th Plan period (2012-17) with a capital expenditure of over Rs 1.5 lakh crore. It has set itself the target of becoming a 128,000MW producer by 2032. It has already invested Rs 41,631 crore in the first two years of the Plan (2012-14)
Prasad
BRF Oldie
Posts: 7793
Joined: 16 Nov 2007 00:53
Location: Chennai

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Prasad »

Chennai gets solar smart
Take, for instance, 79-year-old V. Balakrishnan, a resident of Kalakshetra Colony, Besant Nagar, who strongly believes that solar is the way to go. “Though it’s a matter of time, the city will switch to solar and also supply electricity to the TNEB. If the State does not rely on external sources, it will save on transmission costs,” he says. Balakrishnan has installed a 10x12 feet split solar panel with a capacity of 1.5KW that generates six kilowatt hours (six units a day). The two-way net electricity meter reads both incoming and outgoing electricity.

“Since my system generates 6 units per day, I can recover the Rs. 1.2 lakh I spent on my solar power system in around six years,” he says.

K. Akila of Triplicane too has opted for a 1KW system that cost her Rs. 48,000, inclusive of the net meter obtained from TNEB. She says her system generates 4-5 units a day, or around 220 to 240 units every two months (or a single cycle) “Compared to my earlier electricity bills of Rs. 4, 000-Rs. 5, 000, I shell out only Rs. 1,000 now.”
So a generation capacity of 4x60 = 240 units in a 2 month period. At Rs 6.60 per unit, that amounts to approx Rs 1500 per billing cycle. So if you spend the above mentioned 48k, you'd recover it in slightly less than 3 years. You really wont see much deterioration in the generating capacity in that period. So you can be sure you'll recoup that cost. After that its pretty much free power. Not bad really! Sure, chennai isn't arizona with its 365 days of 12 hrs of sunlight but even with say 3 months of below par generation, you could break even in 3/3.5 years.
Rishirishi
BRFite
Posts: 1409
Joined: 12 Mar 2005 02:30

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Rishirishi »

Prasad wrote:Chennai gets solar smart
Take, for instance, 79-year-old V. Balakrishnan, a resident of Kalakshetra Colony, Besant Nagar, who strongly believes that solar is the way to go. “Though it’s a matter of time, the city will switch to solar and also supply electricity to the TNEB. If the State does not rely on external sources, it will save on transmission costs,” he says. Balakrishnan has installed a 10x12 feet split solar panel with a capacity of 1.5KW that generates six kilowatt hours (six units a day). The two-way net electricity meter reads both incoming and outgoing electricity.

“Since my system generates 6 units per day, I can recover the Rs. 1.2 lakh I spent on my solar power system in around six years,” he says.

K. Akila of Triplicane too has opted for a 1KW system that cost her Rs. 48,000, inclusive of the net meter obtained from TNEB. She says her system generates 4-5 units a day, or around 220 to 240 units every two months (or a single cycle) “Compared to my earlier electricity bills of Rs. 4, 000-Rs. 5, 000, I shell out only Rs. 1,000 now.”



So a generation capacity of 4x60 = 240 units in a 2 month period. At Rs 6.60 per unit, that amounts to approx Rs 1500 per billing cycle. So if you spend the above mentioned 48k, you'd recover it in slightly less than 3 years. You really wont see much deterioration in the generating capacity in that period. So you can be sure you'll recoup that cost. After that its pretty much free power. Not bad really! Sure, chennai isn't arizona with its 365 days of 12 hrs of sunlight but even with say 3 months of below par generation, you could break even in 3/3.5 years.
at 9000 per year it takes 6 years if you do not factor in the interest. Even then it is a fantastic investment. let us say the system has a lifetime of 30 years.

Yearly income is 9000 over 30 years. 2,7 lacks return from an investment of 48K. Yes there will be intrest costs, but factor in the increase in electricity prices as well. Even after 30 years the panels may still work at over 50%.

The even better news are the further expected drop in the installation costs. Who knows, the power industry may go the same way as telecom has gone. :D
Post Reply