NEW DELHI: Union Power Minister RK  Singh on March 10 launched a surplus power portal to ensure availability of sufficient power during the summer months and ensure utilisation of capacity at a reasonable rate.

No power producer would be permissible to charge exorbitant prices. Singh has asked Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and Grid Controller of India to monitor the state of affairs. Over 200 stakeholders from the state governments and power sector attended the virtual function held in New Delhi. Last year, the power ministry had fixed a price cap of Rs 12 per unit to ensure no profiteering after taking note of the prices in the electricity exchange had gone up to Rs 20.

This year, it is expected that the demand will be much higher than last year and so the gasbased plants and imported coal-based plants will need to be scheduled. That is why a separate segment has been carved out for those generation systems where the cost of production from gas and imported coal may cross Rs 12. This separate segment is called HP DAM. Singh, said that the HP.

DAM was part of the overall strategy to ensure that all available power capacity is utilized for supply the power to consumers. Now the DICOMs will be indicate their surplus power in block times/days/months on the portal to requisition the surplus power. This will reduce the fixed cost burden of the DISCOMs and will also enable all the available generation capacity to be utilised, the power minister added.

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