Understanding Power Equations: Background for Niddodi Thermal Power Project

By Philip Mudartha
Pics by John V Tauro
Bellevision Media Network

Mangalore, 15 Aug 2013: As of January 2013, Karnataka state had a power generation installed capacity of 13,596.28 MW which consisted of 7,279.56 MW of state share, 4,720.63 MW of private share and 1,596.09 MW of central share.

 

 

The state population is 61 million.  So, the per capita installed capacity is 222W. Is this sufficient?

 

Let us run some basic calculations:

 

Sector	State	Private	Central	Total
Cap MW	7296.56	4720.63	1596.63	13596.28
%	53.6	34.7	11.7	100.0

 

Let us assume that the plants are available to run and produce power for an average 330 days in a calendar year. This assumption is made based on Indian power generation industry are world class, which they are not.

 

The maximum power that can be miraculously generated is 222w*24hr/day*330 days/year/1000w.hr/365 days/year is 4.8 units per day per person.

 

Miraculously, I said because no process of power generation is 100% efficient. No plant gives 100% capacity utilization. No plant can run continuously round the clock for 330 days without breakdown.

 

Technical issues apart, there are resource crunches like shortage of inputs like coal and cooling water for thermal power plants, water for hydro power plants and sunshine, wind, bio-waste for renewable source power plants.

 

The table below shows the installed capacity according to types of inputs.

 

Source	Thermal	Nuclear	Renewable	Hydro	Total
Cap MW	6355.65	254.86	3385.97	3599.80	13596.28
%	46.7	1.9	24.9	26.5	100.0

 

Among them, the nuclear power plants have highest capacity utilization ratio. The best plants in the world have reached 95%. However, world industry average is 84%. Under Indian conditions, let us fix 80%.

 

The Thermal power plants generally achieve 65% capacity utilization. Under Indian conditions, I will fix it at 50%, largely due to the stock-out situation of imported high grade coal.

 

The renewables based power plants have much lower capacity utilization at around 25% for obvious reasons.  The hydro plants are doing any better, so I consider a figure of 30%. 

 

Based on above, the average capacity factor is 38%. Therefore, 222w installed capacity actually produces 1.8 units per day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you happy with this situation? How much power do you want to use in your household?

 

To produce one ton of crude steel, about 1000 units of power is required, to convert iron ore to iron and then to crude steel through available best process technology routes. How much crude steel should our state produce? Currently, it produces about 100 kg per person a year, while China produces about six times. How could our manufacturing take off and create jobs without adding capacity? How can manufacturing industries operate without basic input of energy, which is electricity?

 

I have elsewhere given calculations to show that an acre of agricultural farm produces only Rs15, 000 net annual incomes. How long should we live with such meager agricultural productivity?

 

Should we build more power plants? If so, where should we build them? If we should not build any, why are we clamoring for development and growth? We should be asking for quality of life of ancient days and status quo (as we lived some fifty years ago).  Do we know what we want?