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Q: W hat will be the major growth drivers for the power sector in coming years?

A: With the exponential growth seen in the country’s GDP over the years, availability of quality power at a reasonable cost will be very important to sustain the growth in the GDP in the coming years. We feel that the following would be the growth drivers for the power sector in future:

  • The global warming potential of the thermal generating stations would force the developers to source advance technology options wherein the emphasis would be to put up power stations with high operational efficiencies.
  • The quantum of alternate energy options like renewable energy and nuclear energy will increase the overall basket of the Indian energy options.
  • Emphasis would shift from adding generation capacities to minimising the transmission & distribution losses.

Q: W hat are the prominent issues that have affected the power industry over the last ten years and led to present day scenario of power shortage?

A:   • Lack of political will to address the issue of large quantum of transmission & distribution losses which had effected the financial health of the electricity boards;

Q: W hat will be the impact of Nuclear Deal with NSG on the industry? What is likely to be the future scenario in terms of contribution to overall power generation etc?

A: The Nuclear Deal will allow India to diversify the energy basket wherein technology as well as fuel supply would be available for putting up nuclear power projects. However, in order to add capacities in nuclear sector, the Indian Government would be required to amend the Indian Atomic Act wherein private sector, with some threshold qualification criteria, would be allowed to set up nuclear power projects. The addition of nuclear power projects will replace thermal power projects which have tremendous global warming potential and would go a long way in conserving the environment. It may be pertinent to note that handling nuclear energy would involve strengthening the existing environment and social safeguard measures applicable to the power sector currently.

Q: W hat strategies your company has adopted to tackle rise in cost of raw material and shortage of fuel?

A:   • Entering into long term fuel supply and transportation contracts with take or pay obligations applicable to either parties to have secure fuel supply position;

Q: In terms of regulations and policy, what is the international experience looking at the current Indian scenario?

A:   • The federal and state governments allow the power utilities to be function as companies which run on commercial principles;

Q: In India, the huge amount of investment in power sector evaporates in the T & D Losses. What are your views to overcome these losses?

A: It is already understood that a large quantum of the T&D losses are commercial losses which are mainly theft of power at the consumer end. Various stakeholders in the power sector are doing their bits in overcoming these losses and agreeing to a timeframe for reduction of these losses. The state electricity boards were integrated units and hence, it was difficult to ascertain which arm of the board was losing money. With the passage of the Electricity Act, 2003, the state electricity boards have been trifurcated into business verticals in generation, transmission and distribution sectors and companies formed to work on commercial principles and it is easy now to ascertain that the distribution companies are losing money. The regulatory commissions have been fixing tariff orders for these distribution companies which lay emphasis on the reduction of these T&D losses and any non performance on this account is not allowed while arriving at the tariffs for respective consumer categories. Many states have also experimented with allowing private sector participation in various circles wherein selected pockets are offered to private parties on the basis of tariff bids laying performance yardsticks towards reduction of distribution losses. The federal government is also doing its bit by launching modified APDRP scheme which provides incentive as well as grants for improving the efficiencies of the distribution utilities.

Q: W hat are the top five priorities for your company? What are the measures taken by the company to explore opportunities?

A:   • Construction of 1320 MW domestic coal project at Jhajjar, Haryana as per the committed timelines for commercial operation in 2012; construction of all the wind projects currently being developed by the Company as per the commissioning schedules;

The Company has been taking adequate measures and working on strategies to meet its priorities.

Q: In India, most of the power generation companies use thermal fuels and only few are using renewables. According to you, how feasible it is to use the renewal energy sources for power generation in India?

A: Due to the seasonal availability of the renewable energy sources like wind, hydro, biomass etc, the renewable energy generation options may, at best, be used as “peaking load” stations till very near future and hence, in order to meet the growing energy needs for a developing economy like India, all the thermal power projects will continue to be built in India as “base load” stations. However, with the emphasis on continuous integration of various transmission grids across India, there may be a continuous flow of energy from surplus region to deficit region and hence, it would be easier to flatten the load curves across regions. This would allow phenomenal increase in the quantum of renewable energy options in the total energy basket in the future.