Coal news and updates

23% of power generated in India is lost during T&D

July 18: More than 23% of power is wasted in India during transmission and distribution even as the government has chalked out a series of measures to reduce wastage, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.

“As per the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) report, transmission and distribution (T&D) losses in the country for the year 2012-13 stood at 23.04% (provisional),” Goyal said.

Meanwhile, India experienced a peak power shortage of 4.5% (6,103 MW) and energy deficit of 4.2% (42,428 million units) during the year 2013-14, the minister said.

It is assumed that had the T&D losses been lower, India’s power shortage and energy deficit would have been much lower or would not have occurred at all, industry sources felt.

The minister said electricity is a concurrent subject and the responsibility of its distribution rests with the states. The Government of India acts as a facilitator in supplementing the efforts of the states to provide power to consumers in an improved manner, he said.

“With the aim of reducing AT&C losses and improving the power distribution sector of state utilities, the Government of India has launched the Restructured-Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP),” Goyal said.

Projects under the scheme are taken up in two parts in towns having population of more than 30,000 (10,000 for special category states) as per census 2001. Part-A of the scheme is for establishing an IT-enabled system for energy accounting/auditing and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) for big cities (population of 4 lakh and annual energy input of 350 MU) whereas Part-B is for up-gradation, augmentation and strengthening of electrical infrastructure in project towns.

Under Part-A (IT-enabled system), projects worth Rs 5,348.34 crore for 1,412 towns, 72 Part-A (SCADA) projects worth Rs 1,601.28 crore and 1,244 Part-B projects worth Rs 31,139.71crore have been sanctioned till June 30, 2014 under the R-APDRP programme.

Further, the government has notified mandatory labelling of distribution transformers to ensure that distribution transformer losses are minimised, he said.