BESCOM’s plan for summer months: (March-May, 2013)
1)BESCOM is planning for the upcoming summer months (March- May) when the demand for power goes up.This is due to the excess demand for electricity above the average consumption, due to:
- Water level goes down everywhere, and hence to pump the same quantity of water, more power is required. It’s same for the house-holds pumping water to overhead tanks, huge municipal water pumping stations or the Irrigation IP sets of the farmers.
- Secondly, there is additional demand from the cooling equipments like A/c, water coolers, more use of refrigerator etc.
- Thirdly the demand for lighting increase, as students uses the lighting more during exam times.
The total increase due to all the above comes around 600 MW.BESCOM has prepared for this increase of 600MW, which taken the total requirement to 4100 MW.
2)Our situation in this summer is exacerbated by a severe drought in the preceding year, which pulled down the water levels much further. Adding to that, suddenly the RTPS unit 8 stopped due to technical fault. During summer there are also sudden failures from the central generating stations located outside the state, from where we buy the power. Thus, we expect a maximum shortage of around 300 MW during the peak period of early morning 6-9am and evening, 6-9pm.
3)BESCOM has planned three key measures to overcome the deficit.
a)The first is to prevent over drawl and excess consumption by agriculturalpump sets (IP) for irrigation, by illegally converting the power supplied for lighting purpose to run the pump sets. This is done by using small capacitors at the pump sets. Now, BESCOM will make certain technical changes in the technology, thereby making such illegal conversion impossible. This system is called as ‘Open delta system’. The estimated saving due to this is around 210 MW.
b)The second measure is strict vigilance. This time, the BESCOM vigilance teams, who have police men in that, will inspect installations even at night, from 6-9pm to prevent misuse of power in activities like welding, decorative lighting, thefts etc. Every day, all officers of BESCOM will ensure around 1500 inspections! This will save another 60 MW of power.
c)Thirdly, we will create awareness and request the public to use heavy power during the night time, when the demand is less. Heavy power consuming appliances and equipment, like the water pump, geyser etc can be used after 10pm at night, instead of early morning. BESCOM will use its brand ambassador, the famous Kannada actor Upendra and his family, for creating such awareness. We expect saving of around 30 MW from this.
4)We are also scheduling the power supply in rural regions in such a way that, IP sets gets power for 6 hours and house get power for 12 hours; as per the Govt order. We thank the Government for providing us all support in managing this harsh summer; the summer after a severe drought in the state. Thus, we are confident that we will be able to supply power to our esteemed consumers without any load-shedding. All regular maintenance works are being done now, so that after March there won’t be any long outage due to maintenance works, except in sudden cases of technical fault.
5)Still, in cases of any outage, feel free to reach our ‘BESCOM helpline’, thru email (), or SMS to 9243150000, by typing the word Bescom and then type your complaint or by just calling 08022873333. We have 25 lines and at your service 24x7. For the first time, we have pressed into service 150 additional teams in rural areas also, for ensuring that we serve the rural population also immediately without delay, as we do in Bangalore with our existing 150 teams.
The Chief General Manager, Corporate Affairs, BESCOM.