Requirement of power & energy
The requirement of power for the state for all categories of consumers has been gradually increasing year after year. Taking all sources of growth in the demand into account, the 17th Electric Power Survey of India under the aegis of Central Electricity Authority (CEA) had assessed the demand of the state for the last few years and 18th Electric Power Survey Committee has assessed for the year 2014-15 as below:
[table id=3 /]
Availability of Energy
The power supply of Manipur depends entirely on the share of power allocated from the Central Sector Power Plants like, Loktak Hydro Electric Project, Kopili HE Project, Khandong HE Project, Assam Gas Based Power Project at Kathalguri and Agartala Gas Turbine Power Project at Ramchandranagar, Ranganadi HE Project, Doyang HE Project and shared power plant of Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited at Baramura. The availability of power varies from time to time depending on the actual generation from these projects. The situation deteriorates when there is outage of any generating unit(s) in any station of the central sector plants. To mitigate the gap in the demand and supply of the State, Manipur State Power Distribution Company Limited (MSPDCL) resort to sell/purchase of power through power exchange.
The State’s own generation is negligibly small. There is only one State owned hydro generating station in operation. The station is Leimakhong Stage-I Micro Hydel plant having a small capacity of 600 KW. The State has diesel power houses which are used as standby. These are operated only when the Grid supply fails. We also operate the Leimakhong Heavy Fuel Based Power House having a capacity of 36 MW sometimes in emergency situation. The cost of generation from this unit is abnormally high.
Energy available from the Central Sector/State Sector Generations and Energy purchased during the last five years are shown below.
[table id=4 /]
State Share from Central Sector Generating Stations and Availability of Power:
The generations of all the Central Sector Power Projects of North Eastern Region are shared among the N.E. States as per the allocation made by the Government of India leaving 20% as unallocated share. The allocated share of Manipur for power drawal from the Central Sector Generating Stations of this region is as given below.
[table id=5 /]
The total allocated share shown above is based on the total installed capacities of the projects. But, the actual generation has been much lesser in most of the time. Thus, there has been always a shortfall of power in the State. The availability of power is about 153.30 MW against a peak demand of about 262 MW. This is an unfortunate situation. The shortfall has an adverse impact on the overall development activities in the State and caused inconvenience to the public as the State has to resort to load shedding throughout the year and also to impose restriction on industrial use during peak load hours.
The State Government has contributed Rs. 24.9684 crore as equity share to take part in the North East Transmission Company (NETC) for construction of 400 KV D/C Pallatana – Silchar – Bongaigaon trunk transmission system from the Pallatana Gas Power Project (two units of 363.6 MW, out of which one unit of 363.6 MW has been operated commercially from February, 2014) and Bongaigaon Thermal Power Project (750 MW). The state is supposed to get 42 MW and 40 MW of power from the two projects respectively as its allocated share. Further, Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Project of 2000 MW (NHPC) and Kameng Hydro Electric Power project of 600MW(NEEPCO) targeted for commissioning during 12th Plan from which 43MW and 14MW of power have also been allocated to Manipur respectively. The Government of Manipur has received Rs 4.9368 crore as an equity return for participation in the North East Transmission Company (NETC).
Transmission Charge
The evacuation of power among the states is done by PGCIL (Power Grid Corporation of India Limited). The transmission charge is fixed by CERC (Central Electricity Regulatory Commission) as per Regulations on Annual Fixed Charges/ Point of Connection Charges (POC) and sharing of losses.
Shortfall
In Manipur, the demand of power has always surpassed the supply in the State. This has been proved by the demand and supply relationship shown below:-