Minister for Energy Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy has said that with Andhra Pradesh poised for rapid industrialisation, the demand for power is set to increase manifold in the coming years.
During an interaction with the officials of power utilities on Sunday, the Minister said the annual energy consumption crossed 60,943 Million Units (MU) in 2021-22 financial year, when compared to 50,077 MUs in 2017-18 fiscal.
“The demand for power is expected to go up to 250 MUs per day by March, 2023,” said Mr. Ramachandra Reddy.
In an attempt to meet the burgeoning demand, he said, the government had initiated measures to ramp up the installation capacity.
Efforts were being made by the AP-Genco to start the commercial operation of Sri Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Station Stage-II (800MW) at Krishnapatnam by the October-end and the Stage-V of Dr. Narla Tata Rao Thermal Power Station by March, 2023, he said.
“At the same time, special emphasis has been laid on increasing the renewable energy generation capacity to ensure that power becomes cheaper and cleaner,” said the Minister.
Mr. Ramachandra Reddy said that the government had already announced a renewable energy export policy to establish wind solar hybrid projects.
Besides, pumped hydro storage projects with an aggregate capacity of 33 GW have been planned both on and off-river sites.
The government signed an agreement with Solar Energy Corporation of India for procuring 7,000 MW of power to continue the nine-hour day time free power supply to the agriculture sector for the next 30 years.
Special Chief Secretary (Energy) K. Vijayanand told the Minister that the State government had achieved 40% of its installed energy capacity from renewable sources and that due focus was laid on energy efficiency measures.
AP-Transco B. Sreedhar, Joint Managing Director I. Prudhvi Tej and DISCOM CMDs J. Padma Janardhana Reddy and K. Santosha Rao, Deputy Secretary (energy) Kumar Reddy and others were present in the meeting.
