Monday 4 June 2012

Spot electricity prices soar in May second fortnight

Richa Mishra




New Delhi, June 3: 

With temperatures soaring in the second fortnight of May, the spot electricity prices for South averaged around Rs 8.12 unit significantly higher than Rs 3.15 in the same month last year.

The price for the region hit a high of Rs 20 a unit during the month.

For North, the increase was about 14 per cent to Rs 3.29 a unit (Rs 2.89 a unit). But, in June, the spot prices are expected to soften.

Those tracking the sector said that in June the prices are expected to soften because power, which was bottled up in Karnataka, is now available and also more hydro and wind power are in the market.

Karnataka had stopped the developers from trading power outside State on the grounds that there was electricity shortage in the State. The developers there were barred till May 31.

In fact the first fortnight of May had seen the North spot prices averaging around Rs 3 a unit. For the South, though the prices saw a drastic upward movement averaging around Rs 10 a unit, the volumes were low (about 150 MW).

The reason for lower volumes was that the buyers from South were purchasing less because of low transmission capacity.

The country is experiencing a power shortage of about 8-9 per cent, at present, down from 10-13 per cent at the start of the 11th Plan.

But that unmet demand is likely to further widen the shortage gap.

In the second fortnight of May, the peak demand met was 1,17,000 MW, the energy consumed was about 2,720 million units per day, sources said.

This was higher than last year's 2,426 million units.

On May 30 it touched the highest peak demand of 1,19,000 MW.

Of this 2,719 million units, about 100 million units were coming from renewable sources, mostly from wind. The demand variation, particularly peaking, is met from hydro power.

Almost 17,000-18,000 MW comes from the hydro segment.

The total installed capacity of the country has crossed 2,00,000 MW, with a record capacity addition of 54,964 MW in the 11th Plan.

No comments:

Post a Comment