The ruling BJP and opposition Congress are engaged in the war of words over purchasing power in spite of possessing excess power. The ruling BJP is purchasing from central generating stations, the BJP lead government decides to stop further addition to existing generation capacity. The senior government officials informed, the government took the decision based on the fact that existing power generation capacity itself is being under-utilised and further capacity needn’t be added till the end of next fiscal. “Karnataka has enough and more power generation,” said a government official.

As per the official's statement, Karnataka will not set up new power projects or sign new power purchase agreements (PPA), but will run existing plants to the maximum capacity if required. With an existing capacity of 28,000 MW, Karnataka can generate 11,336 MW from conventional energy and 3,368 MW from the Central Grid System CGS and 13,544 MW from renewable energy. As on November 25, the demand for power in Karnataka was 8,987 MW with only 4,152 MW generated by conventional sources, 3,449 MW from CGS and 1,390 MW by non-conventional resources.

13 thermal units generated only 1500 MW. The biggest burden for the government is the mustrun condition in renewable energy PPAs possess. The official explained further, “Using the merit order dispatch model, we tend to forgo the least expensive power for the most expensive, as we have to anyway pay for both. So, if I pay Rs 4 per unit of solar power and Rs 2 for thermal, then I’ll use solar power as I’ll use the most expensive to save wasteful expenditure of Rs 2 per unit". The government cut back on thermal and hydel power production as it was the least of the losses. 

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