Electricity | Business Upturn

Maharashtra Energy Minister: Load Shedding occurring due to coal scarcity

Aryan Jakhar — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 14:25:06 +0000

Maharashtra is experiencing load shedding due to a spike in electricity consumption following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions and a coal supply constraint, according to state energy minister Nitin Raut.

He accused the federal government for bad coal supply and railway rack management, claiming that certain plants in the state barely have six days’ worth of coal storage.

“Some plants in Maharashtra are left with one and a half days of coal, some with three days and some others with six days of coal. The state government is working to resolve the power crisis,” Raut was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

“The minister of water resources has been urged to provide water for hydroelectricity generation.” But there are 17 TMCs of water remaining in Koyna Dam, and one TMC is needed every day to create energy,” he noted.

He further noted that the state is entitled to APM gas under the terms of the deal with the Centre.

“They aren’t doing the same for us.” The Maharashtra government must provide the central government with 2200 crores. “They instructed us to give them the money first, and then they’ll give us the coal,” Raut claimed.

“If load-shedding has to be resolved then coal, water and gas are needed,” he said.

He further stated that the coal scarcity is not confined to Maharashtra, but is widespread throughout India, and that the Union power minister has met with energy ministers from all states, urging them to import coal.

“The demand for electricity has increased manifold since the economy reopened after the Covid-19 pandemic abated across the country. Electricity is not available for purchase in the open market,” he said.

His comments came only days after the state cabinet approved the state-owned Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) purchasing energy for the next two months in order to avoid load shedding.

Maharashtra’s power demand has reached a new high of 28,000 megawatts (MW). The MSEDCL is currently serving a demand of roughly 24,800 MW, up about 4,000 MW from the preceding year.

Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited (MahaGenco), according to sources, is planning to import 20 lakh metric tonnes of coal, which is expected to arrive at power plants by mid-May.

Across the country, there is a coal shortage.

According to a Reuters article, India is likely to have more power outages this year since coal supplies are at their lowest pre-summer levels in at least nine years, while electricity consumption is predicted to climb at the quickest rate in at least 38 years.

According to the news agency, the lack of electricity as a proportion of demand has risen to 1.4 percent in the last week, surpassing the 1% deficit in October, when India last faced a significant coal crisis, and the 0.5 percent shortfall in March.

The southern state of Andhra Pradesh, which is home to automakers like Kia Motors and drug companies like Pfizer, is experiencing a power shortage of 8.7%.

At the start of this fiscal year, beginning on April 1, coal inventories at power plants had an average stock of nine days, the lowest since at least 2014. According to government rules, power plants should maintain at least 24 days of stock on hand on average.

Coal is responsible for about 75% of India’s power generation.

Eight core industries growth rose to 3.8℅ in December: CSO

Himanshu Mishra — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 13:00:57 +0000

The growth for the Eight core sectors’ rose to 3.8 per cent after the 3.4 percent in November 2021, the government announced on January 31. According to the data released by the Central Statistics Office, the coal output rose by 5.2 percent, on the other hand, the crude oil output declined by 1.8 percent. The rise also contrasted with the contraction of 0.4 percent in the same month last year, according to the official data released on Monday.

However, the other core sectors, which experienced a surge comprises of natural gas output (19.5%), petroleum refinery output (5.9%), fertilizer output (3.5%), cement output (12.9%), and electricity output (2.5%) respectively. Nevertheless, the steel output plunged by 1 percent, announced the government.

Before this, in November, India’s output for eight core sectors thrived by 3.1 percent, in comparison to 7.5 percent in October 2021. However, then the production of these sectors had grown in November 2021 over the same period last year, as per the ministry’s data.

The Ministry of Finance data had announced that during the duration of April-November of FY 2021-22, the growing proportion of the eight infrastructure sectors — coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement, and electricity — made it to 13.7 percent. These sectors reported negative progress of 11.1 percent during a similar period in the last fiscal.

Meanwhile, these 8 core industries in India comprise 40.27% of all of the items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

NTPC reports net profit of Rs ₹4,131.99 crore in Q3

Vineet Jain — Sat, 29 Jan 2022 14:24:58 +0000

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) increased its combined net profit by more than 19% to Rs 4,626 crore in the 3rd quarter of the present fiscal year.

In the previous year’s similar quarter, it made a combined profit of Rs 3,876.36 crore. It should be remembered that the business recorded a total profit of Rs 3,315 crore and combined revenue of Rs 24,509 crore during a similar period the previous year. The net profit for the third quarter was Rs 3,212 crore, while the combined revenues were Rs 28,329 crore.

The NTPC board members agreed on Saturday, among other things, to give a dividend payout of 40% (Rs 4 per share) on the full price of paid-up equity stock of Rs 10 each for the fiscal year 2021-22. In a second statement, NTPC said that its board members had accepted an asset monetization plan to spin off the firm’s recognized renewable power facilities, as well as NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd, into a wholly-owned subsidiary.

In the third quarter, the business got 52.81 million metric tonnes (MMT) of coal, compared to 45.56 MMT a year before. Likewise, coal imports increased to 0.52 million metric tonnes in the quarter, up from 0.26 million metric tonnes in the previous quarter.

The NTPC Group’s total electricity production capacity climbed to 67,757.42 Megawatts on December 31, 2021, up from 62,975 Megawatts the previous year.

NTPC power output up by 4%

Arnav Dogra — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 06:09:42 +0000

NTPC Limited, India’s largest electricity generation service, is a government-run Indian Public Undertaking which is involved in the production of electricity.

On January 18, 2021, NTPC achieved a lifetime power-output high of 1,009 million units. Apart from this, it also noted a gross cumulative generation of 222.4 billion units during the time period between April and December last year. The company reported the gross power output to be up by 3.8%.

The requirement of power/energy in a state is directly associated with general overall demand in the economy; the massive increase in power output can be viewed as a consequence and measure of the nation’s recovering economy as the COVID-19 pandemic becomes more manageable.

This increase in power output is one among several other shreds of evidence of economic recoveries like GST (goods and services tax) collections, mineral refineries, and railway freight showing a subsequent rise.

Raj Kumar Singh, Power & New and Renewable Energy Minister, voiced out a similar analysis of the situation saying that December 2020 witnessed a daily electricity consumption of 5-10 GW (gigawatts), which was higher than demands during the COVID-19 period.

He also went on to add that the pandemic has been handled well responding to which a rise in the national economy can be seen.

With new eco-friendly reforms starting to be put into place, the NTPC has started making plans to make the shift towards green energy. The Power Ministry currently has around 20GW of power capacity under the works, out of which 5GW will be obtained from renewable sources.

The NTPC has 70 power stations all over the country, with the current installed capacity standing at 63.63 GW.

For its clean energy portfolio, the NTPC aims to infuse minimum 1GW of solar projects and 1GW of wind energy projects which will help it achieve the 2032 target of 32GW of clean energy.

With a proposal to permeate Rs 1 trillion during the present term of the BJP Government, the energy giant seeks to gain a power output capacity of 130GW by 2032.

PhonePe enables all 73 electricity boards to bill payments for 250 mn users

Divya Joyce — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 05:49:52 +0000

Flipkart-owned PhonePe on Monday said it has onboarded all the 73 electricity boards (both public and private sector) across the country, enabling its over 250 million users to pay their electricity bills through the app.

He added that over 80 per cent of its customers are in tier II cities and beyond, indicating the widespread adoption of contactless bill payments. PhonePe has also launched many features to drive growth in the bill payments category, including ‘Reminders’ and AutoPay options.

“We have seen massive growth in the adoption of digital payments for electricity bills since we launched the category in 2016. In fact, there has been an over 40 per cent increase in the volume of electricity bill payments in October 2020 over the corresponding period last year”, Ankit Gaur, Director of Business Development at PhonePe, said.

Evalueserve selects Commvault to ensure data availability to automate its data protection processes. Evalueserve is currently using Commvault to protect its on-premises data, including databases, applications, and file servers, and looking to expand the solution to all locations. By adopting Commvault Complete Data Protection, Evalueserve is able to securely encrypt backup copies and rapidly restore them, even in case of any ransomware attack, a statement said.

By adopting Commvault, Evalueserve can quickly complete the restoration drill 57 per cent faster than before, and the improved efficiency helped the company to accelerate the turnaround time for backup and restore by 50 per cent, the statement said.

Evalueserve has six operating centres globally. The company also plans to expand the Commvault backup solution to support its hybrid-cloud environment.

KIKO TV pivots to an ‘assisted shopping’ experience app Short format video app KIKO TV on Monday said it is repositioning the company as an assisted shopping experience app.

‘The platform which was launched a few months ago, amidst the pandemic, has been witnessing a 30 per cent month-on-month increase in the social commerce vertical and will now be focusing on the growing market opportunities present within the same,’ a statement said.

Amid the pandemic, many buyers are looking to get a live shopping experience digitally from their favourite stores and brands, and KIKO TV aims to fill this gap and introduce a two-way live video communication stage between merchants and buyers, the statement said.

Keeping the current ‘Vocal For Local’ and ‘Made In India’ sentiment, KIKO TV will feature products from local Indian vendors only, it added.

Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission reduces charges by half for unutilised capacity for April and May

Anjana Krishna — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 14:08:49 +0000

The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has directed distribution companies to reduce their fixed charges by half for unutilized capacity for April and May in relief to commercial and industrial customers.

The current tariff mechanism has two parts — a fixed charge, which is the investment incurred towards power generation equipment, and a variable cost or the cost of fuel.

“The Commission is of the view that in order to avoid hardships to such consumers, the Fixed Charges for the unutilized capacity (Contract Demand – Maximum Demand) during April 2020 and May 2020 for eligible Industrial and Non-domestic (Commercial etc.) consumers may be billed at reduced rate against existing rate of Rs.250/kVA/month,” the DERC said on Monday.

The customers will be billed at Rs.125/kVA/month as against existing rate of Rs.250/kVA/month. This will be adjusted in the next two billing cycles by the distribution companies — BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL), BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL), Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL), and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC)

Is India’s Energy Initiative on Track?

Aditi Swarup — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 06:26:26 +0000

In 2018, the first Modi-BJP administration introduced the National Electricity Plan. According to this plan, the Center had set a clean energy target of 22 GW (gigawatts) for themselves, which had to be achieved by 2022.
A recent research analysis, ‘The Curious Case of India’s Discom,’ claims that only 44% of the said target has been achieved. ‘The Curious Case of India’s Discoms-How Renewable Energy could Reduce Their Financial Distress’ was written by Vibhuti Garg, Energy Economist and Kashish Shah, Research Analyst from IEEFA (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis).
The study stated that the Central Government needs to put a policy framework in place and incentivise states to do away with old thermal plants without adding any additional financial burden on states.