Goa government is expected to spend whopping Rs 2816 crores on purchase of 8,080 million units (MUs) of electricity for the State for next two years ending March 2019.

In a petition submitted before the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC), the State Electricity Department has said for the current financial year, it will be spending Rs 1330.98 crores on purchase of 3998.32 MUs of power.

The power consumption is expected to witness a rise in 2018-19, when it expects to purchase 4,282 MUs of electricity at the cost of Rs 1,485.21 crores.  As per current financial year, State has 6.09 lakh consumers.

The State has already spent Rs 2390 crores on purchase of power in last two years, ending 2016-17.

For the year 2015-16, when the peak demand of Goa was around 583MW, State spent Rs 1141 crores to purchase 4040 MUs of power, which increased to 4082 MUs in 2016-17 and the spending went upto Rs 1,249 crores.

The State’s current power allocation from Centre is 474 MW, which is almost 81 percent of the State total requirement. Power is also procured from cogeneration plants, viz., Goa Energy Private Ltd and Goa Sponge Private Ltd of capacity 30 MW and 12 MW respectively and power from Sesa Sterlite Ltd of 3 MW.

The department is also been procuring power from the renewable sources and non-solar power.

Further, the Union Ministry for Power has assured additional power allocation of 200 MW from the Central grid- from the Ultra Mega Project of Chhattisgarh Surguja power Ltd and for which as a commitment advance pavement of Rs two crores has been paid.

Team TNV