PANAJI
The persistent heatwave conditions this year have had their impact on power consumption patterns in Goa with the daily peak load constantly breaching the 800 megawatts mark for over three weeks now.
However, although the demand is higher than the maximum load allocated and wheeled to Goa through the national grid, the Goa electricity department faces no major hurdles in catering to the demand thanks to the option of buying additional power through the real-time trading options provided by the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), an electronic system based power trading.
"Yes. Our peak load is going higher than 800 MW. It is possibly because of the higher summer vacation tourists footfalls and vastly increased use of air-conditioners and cooling systems in homes due to the summer heat," said Assistant Engineer Milind Desai, adding that industrial and other commercial demand is also on the higher side.
Desaii who is attached to the office of the Chief Electrical Engineer (CEE) at the Vidyut Bhavan headquarters said there is no crisis-like situation because of the higher energy demand as the department opts to buy additional power through the IEX.
Last year, the highest daily peak load in Goa was around 780 MW and this year it has increased by an additional 40-50 megawatts.
Another challenge for the department is to deal with consumers violating their sanctioned load limits with many, particularly in housing colonies using power for commercial purposes. Detecting such consumers and bringing them to book is a cumbersome exercise but teams are on the job in various jurisdictions, a source in the department's vigilance cell said.
Barring a negligible amount of solar power produced here, there has been no power generation in Goa ever since the Reliance power plant folded operations here a few years ago. The State is therefore entirely dependent on the power allocated to it by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) via the national grid which is roughly about 600 MW.
In this scenario, the best option for the State is to keep upgrading its receiving extra high-tension sub-stations at Colvale-Tivim, Ponda and Xeldem, a senior Engineer said.
