Tangedco’s wind power evacuation and use touch a new record

Tamil Nadu’s wind power evacuation this year has increased and for a change twice in the last week, the total amount of wind evacuation has touched 5000 MW, a new record.

According to the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) chairman Rajesh Lakhoni, the forecast is also better for the coming days and more wind is likely to be evacuated. The chairman said thermal units are on standby especially during evening peak as wind power is available.

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“Tangedco evacuated 5689 MW of wind power at 5.02 pm on July 4 higher than the previous peak evacuation of 5535 MW on June 30. This was possible only because of meticulous planning in grid management by the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC),” said Lakhoni.

The chairman on Tuesday (July 5) tweeted that Tangedco has used wind power to the extent of 111.129 MU. The earliest peak was 107.552 achieved on August 7, 2020. Wind forecast looks good, he said.

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The forecast shows that till July 12, not less than 100 million units of wind power will be available for Tangedco to be utilised.

“If wind power is available, the state government has instructed us to use it in full and therefore we are keeping most of our thermal units on standby,” said a senior SLDC official.

On average less than 70 million units of thermal units are being used to provide power supply. “Wind power supply is the maximum among all other sources of power. Following wind is the Central thermal and nuclear units which provide around 98 million units on an average,” said the official.

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With forecasts for rain in many districts, the power demand is less compared to last month. “The peak demand in the evening is less than 16000 MW and out of this nearly 5000 MW is from the wind power alone. Solar contributes around 600 MW mostly in the morning,” said the official.

Since the start of this year’s wind power session, Tamil Nadu has been evacuating more wind power. In the month of May as per data released by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Tangedco had used 2,108.47 million units of wind power against 1507.05 MU in May 2021 and 1128.60 MU in May 2020.

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Generally, wind power season starts around May 15 but this year wind power generation began by the first week of May. “Wind power season began in the first week of May but it was not continuous and we had to depend on coal to meet the summer power demand. But after May 10, we started to get wind power continuously,” said the official.