“Delhi has entered into long term Power Purchase Agreements through DISCOMs to ensure that the power is available at optimal cost,” says Haroon Yusuf, Minister for Power, Industry, Food & Civil Supplies Department, Delhi Government, in conversation with Nayana Singh
The demand for electricity is rising in Delhi. Tell us about the plans the Ministry has for improving the power generation capacity of Delhi. What kind of investments are being made for building more power plants?
In order to bridge the gap between demand and supply of power in the coming years and to reduce the dependency on other states, two new Generating Stations of 1500 MW and 750 MW capacity each are being established by the Delhi Government at Bawana and Bamnauli. At Bawana, two Gas Turbines and one STG have been commissioned. Government of India has already allocated 2.4 mmscmd of gas to Bawana Module-I. Delhi has 50 percent share of power in 1500 MW Coal based Project in Dist. Jhajjar, Haryana, 1st two unit of 500 MW has been commissioned and the remaining two units are expected to be commissioned by next March, 2012. With the commissioning of projects at Bawana, Jhajjar, Bamnauli etc. dependency on other states for power shall reduce significantly.
Please share with as your key achievements as Delhi’s Power Minister?
In my opinion, the key achievement of Delhi’s Power Sector would be the excellent AT&C loss reduction performance in the last 9 years, from 51 percent to 16.83 percent and 63 percent to 17.89 percent in BRPL and BYPL respectively since privatisation and from 53 percent in 2002 to 13 percent in Tata Power DDL as on March 31, 2012. As the supply reliability has improved by almost 99.7 percent, Delhi is now inverter free. The transmission losses of DTL which were 3.84 percent in 2002, at the time of its inception, have come down to 1.38 percent, which is one of the lowest in the country. The availability of transmission system is above 98 percent which perhaps is highest among all the state transmission utility. Delhi’s first 400 KV GIS sub-station is being built at Harsh Vihar in East Delhi. The work on various 220 KV GIS sub-stations at Wazirpur, Rohini-II, Electric Lane and Peeragarhi is in an advance stage of completion.
What initiatives are being adopted by the Ministry to ensure that the power is available at optimal cost?
Delhi has entered into long term Power Purchase Agreements through DISCOMs to ensure power is available to citizens at optimal cost. Currently the power generation in Delhi is 1412 MW. From Central Sector generation we get 3167 MW. So the total power is 4579MW. Remaining from Damodar Valley Corporation, bilateral arrangements, banking, purchase of power from Power Exchanges, long-term and short-term arrangements. Broadly, the Central Sector power is drawn from Chamera- I & II, Dadri, Naptha Jhakri, Koteshwar, Singrauli, Rihand-I & II, BTPS, NAPP and RAPP etc.
IT plays a very important role in Power Sector. Following IT tools are being used in Delhi
• SCADA/DMS systems to ensure high supply reliability.
• GIS (Geographical Information System) for efficient network mapping & Energy audit
• AMR (automated meter reading) for accurate meter reading of consumers
• Unitised sub-stations to counter challenge of sub-station space
• Fault path indicators for speedy isolation of faulty
India is a country of abundant sunshine. What initiatives are being taken to harness solar power for supplying electricity in Delhi?
IPGCL (a Generating Company of Delhi Govt.) is entering into power generation from Renewable Energy sources. Solar Power generation of 262 KWp from the roof tops of Pragati-I and Gas Turbine Power Stations and 5 MWp at the Ash Pond
area of Rajghat power House are being planned. We have target of 50 MWp power generation from Renewable Energy Sources by the end of 12th Five Year Plan. The Discoms, especially NDPL (Tata Power – DDL) has already set up 1 MW solar power plant at Keshav Puram, Delhi and BRPL & BYPL are taking initiatives in this direction too.
“Delhi government is determined to ensuring that power is available to citizens at optimal cost”
What initiatives are being taken by the Ministry to bring e-Governance to Delhi’s power sector. Tell us about the online initiatives that have been taken to enable people to have seamless and affective interaction with the concerned power officials?
In Delhi we have web based services for customer convenience including online registration and showing the status of their application. Online duplicate bill facility has been introduced. Caller Line Identification (CLI) and IVRS have been introduced. SMS services and SMS alerts have been started.
What are the main challenges being faced by Delhi’s Power Sector?
Delhi is facing an acute shortage of Gas supply due to which commencement of work on the Bamnauli Gas Based Power Plant is not taking place and allocation of Gas for second module of Bawana has to be done by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Govt. of India. Further due to stringent pollution measures, the coal based Rajghat Power Plants has to be shut down.
In some unplanned areas there is shortage of space for installation of transformers and also electrical system required for keeping pace with increased load.