DG concept resulted in savings of Rs 550 crore in power sector

Hyderabad: TSSPDCL Chairman and Managing Director G Raghuma Reddy, a career power engineer who was honoured with a citation from Union Power Minister Piyush Goel for planning the Distributed Generation concept, explained that the power utilities first studied the current and projected power requirements for each district, and accordingly chose to allot solar power plants in the districts.

“So now, if we ‘lose’ a solar power plant because of cloudy conditions or inclement weather, the most we stand to lose is about 100 MW or so which can be easily dealt with and we can ensure power grid stability and supply to consumers,” he said.

And because power from the solar power plants is consumed within the district, it has resulted in massive savings in prevented transmission losses. In terms of infrastructure, the smaller solar plants meant restricting transmission sub-stations to 132-33 KV capacity which cost less than larger capacity sub-stations. This has so far resulted in savings of Rs 550 crore.

The plan has helped Telangana which was number 12 in solar power generation when the State was formed with just 37 MW of installed capacity, rise to the number one spot with 3,250 MW of installed solar power generation in just about three years, Raghuma Reddy said.