This edition’s cover story is a statistical account of the decline in power generation in our country. Much has been stated about it. So how steep is the fall? There is a decline sure enough from the conventional sources but the renewable generation has gone up. Added to this is the saving from the LED deployments. Our findings are based on the Jan-Sep 2019 phase compared with a corresponding phase the previous year. There is a decline but the situation is not alarming. More or less 2018 levels are being maintained if gains from saving are considered.

However, on Plant Load Factor, there are worrisome signs. PLF reported at 55.50 per cent in July 2019 fell to 51.02 per cent in August 2019 and it remained at that level in September. Whether this led to power cuts is not known because there has been no updation since July 2019 on Urja. It is the government portal which publishes this data. Demand decrease is seen at the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX). This is reflected in the short term power price, buy and sell bid volumes in day-ahead market. Transmission line additions in route kilometres also fell compared to previous year’s rollouts.

A contributory factor in the PLF fall could be center’s directive enforcing a payment security mechanism operable from August 1, 2019 for the generating companies. Under this mechanism, the discoms are required to open letters of credit for getting power supplies. Resolving past dues is hardly moving anywhere. According to the PRAAPTI portal, which provides details of power purchase transactions between generators and discoms, the outstanding dues of power producers from distribution utilities as on September 30, 2019 stands at Rs 64,240 crore. The centre is considering a proposal to extend a special loan from Power Finance Corporation (PFC) to major defaulter states including Tamil Nadu, UP, Rajasthan, AP, Telangana, Maharashtra and Haryana in a bid to clear outstanding dues to private power producers. Resolution of stressed thermal power assets is not picking up despite steps taken by government and the lenders. The resolution of 12 GW gas-based plants is uncertain due to availability and policy inadequacies. Demand decline and asset stress are the keywords of the phase accounted for in the story.