Kottayam: Power minister M M Mani could not have chosen a more inopportune moment to hint at a tariff hike. The storage position of the state's dams is at an all time high. Daily power consumption, in spite of the World Cup, is lower than during the south-west monsoon last year. And this has left KSEB Limited with enough surplus power that it can sell at high rates to other states like Bihar, and also through the Indian Energy Exchange (the energy sector equivalent of the national stock exchange).
The cumulative inflow into the state's reservoirs from June 1 to June 20 has been 1106 million units. KSEBL, even after taking into account the official prognosis that the monsoon will be normal, had anticipated only 759.5 million units for the entire month of June. The storage in the state's reservoirs just a few days into the season is 1743.24 million units, the healthiest storage level in a decade. Even in 2015, when the monsoon was more than generous, the storage level by the middle of June was only 1053.5 million units. Some of KSEBL's dams - Neriamangalam, Poringal, Kuttiadi, and Lower Periyar - have a near 100 per cent storage. Poringal dam, on the upper stretches of the proposed Athirappilly hydel project, is already overflowing.
Though the relentless, and evenly spread, monsoon rain across the state has brought down temperatures, and with it daily power consumption, KSEBL has no choice but to keep working its hydel stations as the storage in many of its dams is swelling to 100 per cent. Consumption has fallen to as low as 62 million units on June 20; it was 70 million units last year same time, and it had touched a record of 81 million units on April 30 this year.
If KSEB is generating more power internally, it has the option of surrendering the power it schedules daily from central generating stations. But this is an option that KSEB eschews as the power from central stations are dirt cheap, less than Rs 2 a unit. Instead, the utility has started selling the surplus it generates. If the cost of generating hydel power is less than Rs 2 a unit, it is now selling the power at over Rs 5 a unit.
The utility has sold 4.3 MU through the IEX on June 20 alone, at an average of Rs 5.80 per unit. This month it has sold over 75 million units, at over Rs 5 a unit on average. It has also sold 0.3 milliion units to Bihar at Rs 6 per unit on June 20. What's more, the utility has also managed to return the power it had earlier purchased from Haryana.
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