Developed nation milestone! India to be power surplus in FY24

India is expected to have a surplus power generation to the tune of 56,796 million units in FY24, says the Central Electricity Authority's 'Load Generation Balance Report' for the fiscal.

In FY24, the total power demand is expected to be around 1,589,873 million units as against the total power availability of 1,646,670 million units. Compared to FY23 when the All-India Energy Requirement was 15,15,300 million units, this year the total requirement will be up 4.92%.

Region-wise, the western region consisting of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Dadra Nagar will have the maximum surplus of 34,113 million units followed by the southern region consisting of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry, with a surplus of 26,985 million units.

Across the country, it is only the northern region consisting of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir-Ladakh, Rajasthan and Punjab will continue to remain in deficit, though only 8,637 million units. Within the northern region, Delhi will have the maximum deficit of 7,678 million units followed by Uttarakhand at 4,365 million units. Uttar Pradesh will have surplus power to the extent of 6902 million units, says the LGBR.

“The LGBR) 2023-24 outlines the assessment of the anticipated power supply position in the country for the year 2023-24. The report takes into consideration the power availability from various generating stations in operation (both conventional and renewable ones), fuel availability, and anticipated water availability at hydro-electric stations,” said a senior official attached to the Load Despatch Centre.

“We are expecting a capacity addition of 19,680 MW in the year 2023-24 of which 14,930MW will be of Thermal, 3,350 MW of Hydro and 1,400 MW of Nuclear,” said the official.

In FY24, a total of 9,480 MW of thermal capacity will be added by the Central Sector followed by 9,750MW by the state sector. The private sector is expected to add 450MW of thermal capacity.

The Gross Energy Generation in the country has been assessed as 1,750 billion units (BU) out of which 1,535 BU is from conventional power plants in operation (including import from hydro generating stations in Bhutan) and the generating units expected to be commissioned during the year 2023-24.

“The generation programme has been firmed up in consultation with the generating companies/ power utilities, taking into consideration the proposed maintenance schedule of the generating units during the year 2023- 24,” said the official.

Further, 215 BU of energy is expected from renewable energy sources during the year 2023-24. The monthly power requirement for all states/UTs in terms of peak demand and energy requirement has been assessed considering the past trend and have been finalised in consultation with the concerned power utilities, said the official.

To meet the anticipated energy requirement and peak demand, the availability has been worked out in consultation with power utilities in accordance with tied-up generation capacity for the year 2023-24.

The anticipated power supply position of each state/UT has been worked out and the assessment has been discussed with the concerned utility at the fora of respective Regional Power Committees (RPCs).

“The country as a whole is likely to have an energy surplus of 3.6% and peak surplus of 0.7 % with the generation programme finalised for the year 2023-24. The estimated surplus would reasonably take care of any contingency arising out of the increase in power demand under the impact of the weather conditions and any unforeseen outage of generating units. However, in actual operation, the availability would be commensurate to the demand for electricity,” said the official.

During the year 2022-23, total energy requirement and supply increased by 9.8% and 9.7%, respectively, each over the previous year and the peak demand and supply increased by 6.3% and 3.3% respectively as compared to 2021-22.

In 2023-24, power generation from thermal (coal) sources will be 1,255 billion units. Total thermal consisting of coal, lignite, natural gas, diesel, high-speed diesel and naphtha will be 1,324 billion units, nuclear generation is expected to be 46 billion units, and hydro 157 billion units. Renewable power generation consisting of solar and wind will be around 215 billion units.

In percentage terms, power generation from coal alone will meet 72% of the total energy requirement. Next to coal is renewables with a total generation of 12% of the total requirement.

During peak demand, all the regions are likely to face a deficit varying from 4.0% to 11.3% with 4.0% in the northern region, 4.5% in the western region, 5.3% in the north-eastern region, 7.4% in the southern region and 11.3% in the eastern region.

In absolute terms, the southern region is likely to have the highest peak deficit of 4.828 GW followed by Western, Eastern, Northern and North-Eastern Regions with anticipated deficits of 3.499 GW, 3.497 GW, 3.24 GW and 0.209 GW, respectively.

In 2022-23, the northern region faced a gap of demand and supply of 1.0% in terms of energy and peak demand. Western region had been able to meet its power demand fully in terms of peak but in terms of energy, it faced a marginal gap of 0.1% between demand and supply.

Southern region had been able to meet its power demand fully in terms of peak but in terms of energy, it faced a marginal gap of 0.2% between demand and supply. The eastern region had a gap of 1.0% between energy requirement and energy supplied and a gap of 3.7%.

The north-eastern region had been able to meet its power demand fully in terms of Peak but in terms of Energy, it faced a marginal gap of 0.4% between demand and supply. “The demand-supply gap was generally on account of factors other than inadequate availability of power like constraints in the distribution network, financial constraints, commercial reasons, forced outage of generating units etc. However, there were short-term surpluses in most of the states at some point in time depending on the season or time of the day,” said the official.

The surplus power was utilised by deficit states/UTs in the country or neighbouring countries either through bilateral contracts, power exchanges or traders.