The unusually warm summer this year has left Kerala with no alternative but to confront a problem that it has been ignoring for the past few decades. Some districts are battling heatwaves, which has laid bare the chinks in the State’s power system.
It is well known that Kerala depends on electricity imports for much of its daily electricity requirement. It has become routine practice for the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), the State-run power utility, to stave off power restrictions during summer by making advance power purchase deals and entering into swap arrangements with power generators and utilities elsewhere in the country.
However, this year, KSEB projections were upended after temperatures drove up electricity usage to an unprecedented degree. On several days, the year-on-year increase has been in the range of 15 to 20 million units (mu). Electricity consumption rose by 12.79% and 15.62% in March and April, respectively, compared to the same months in 2023. The demand has especially surged in the late evening hours thanks to greater dependence on air-conditioners and the practice of charging e-vehicles during that time. The spike in peak power demand (evening hours) in April on a year-on-year basis was 12.38%. Meeting this demand has proven to be an uphill task.
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Amid all this, people stormed the KSEB section offices following power outages. All this has not made things easy for the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government. A public-sector behemoth with more than 30,000 staff, the KSEB has been accused of being apathetic to complaints and of resorting to unofficial load shedding.
In early May, the Kerala government recommended self-regulation and ruled out the imposition of State-wide power curbs and cyclical load shedding. It directed industries and commercial establishments to keep usage at a minimum between 10 p.m. and midnight. It advised domestic consumers, who constitute the majority of the 1.37 crore-strong KSEB consumers, to conserve electricity and shift high-end electricity use to off-peak hours.
Also read | Irate residents storm KSEB offices in Kochi to protest against power outage
Officially sanctioned power curbs are a sensitive issue in Kerala, where they have been practically non-existent in recent memory. Shortages are hastily made up through power purchases, often at a great cost, which is then quietly passed on to the consumers through fuel surcharges on bimonthly bills.
Internal power generation, which is largely hydropower, accounts for 30% of the requirement at the best of times. In summer, the situation is far worse. For instance, of the May 3 consumption of 115.94 mu, internally produced electricity contributed a mere 22.75 mu. Net imports accounted for a stunning 93.19 mu. Once a power-surplus State, Kerala is now heavily dependent on power allocations and purchases to meet the burgeoning demand. The internal installed capacity of 3678.96 megawatts (MW) is woefully inadequate in terms of self-sufficiency.
Throughout the present crisis, two particularly bad decisions were made. In 2023, the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission decided to scrap a set of long-term power purchase deals totalling 465 MW citing deviations from central norms. The upshot of it was that Kerala stood to lose extremely cheap supply at a time when substitute electricity was expensive in the market. After a controversy erupted over this, the government hastily ordered the restoration of the contracts. However, the companies involved are yet to restart supply.
Second, the Power Department decided to spend the lion’s share of the ₹10,475.03 crore centrally assisted Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme on smart meters rather than on network improvement. Both decisions drew flak from the influential Left power sector unions. All this points to the need for sensible and balanced decision-making, which has so far kept power-deficient Kerala out of real trouble. There are indications that the present crisis has prodded the KSEB, which has plans drawn up for power generation and supply for the long-term, to reassess options and priorities.
Negative headlines on the power situation do not bode well for the LDF government’s aggressive pitch to project Kerala as an investment-friendly destination. On the political front, power curbs are likely to be a weapon in the hands of the Opposition as Kerala goes to local body elections in 2025 and Assembly polls in 2026.
