Challenges in the Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electricity

By Barada prasan Das

Cuttack , Mar 5 : The Thinkers’ Club arranged it’s 113th webinar over the zoom Platform here to discuss on the problems related to Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electricity in the State.  Retired IAS Sri Bibek Pattanaika was the Chief Guest of the meet. Engineer Bijay Chandra Jena was the Chief Speaker of the meet. Prakash Chandra Jain, EngrBal Mukund Das, Pratap Rout,Sukanta Biswal and some others participated in the discussion with the Chief speaker.

According to Mr Pattanaik, Electricity is a vital part of our day to day life. We can not imagine our survival over this planet without electricity. The Energy has penetrated to every aspects of human life.

Starting from the kitchen, bath room, drawing room, communication, transportation, and medical treatment to cultural activities, everywhere there is presence of Electricity to ease the life of every citizen. The welfare governments in the country have considered the supply of electricity as an essential service. The state of affaires in our state is bringing several resentments among the consumers. The Government should look in to it and redress the grievances for welfare of the people.

Mr Jena, in his address presented various published data on generation, transmission and distribution of the power in the state. According to him, Odisha is a state, where electricity is generated more than its requirement. Under utilization of generated electricity is not a healthy situation. Much is not to be said about the generation in the state. It is necessary to focus on clean power and renewable sources of producing electricity. He said, there is vast scope for use of Solar cells in the state.

 The wind power can be harnessed suitably. The transmission aspect is not in bad shape. According to him, there is necessity to install stable towers to withstand the cyclonic winds in the state. A project was undertaken by the Government to lay the transmitting cables underground in the major cities of the state starting from Bhubaneswar. Whenever there is rain and slight higher movement of air, electricity supply is disrupted.

The distribution part of the energy in the state is in a great dismal state. In the inception stage, private companies were generating electricity discretely to feed nearby cities. The Government shifted electricity activities to the Irrigation and Power department. The major source of power at that time was Hydro Power of Hirakud Dam.

Gradually the Government felt necessity of elaborate structure for this power and as such The State Electricity Board was formed. Several reforms were carried out and ultimately, it was felt that the Board cannot take such load and provide state of the art service to the consumers. Presently, electricity is distributed in the state through the private players.

The transmission loss in the state is highest in the country. Power is monitored at the generation stage and again monitored at the distribution stage. There is wide gap between the two figures. It is double the all India average. In reality the transmission and distribution loss include pilferage and theft of power. The private players have taken some advance steps but this is not acceptable to the consumers at large.

Mr Barada Das, the President of the Thinkers’ Club moderated the meet and his opinion was the Government should take timely steps to popularize E. Vehicles for clean environment and promote roof top solar cells to reduce load on the grid. There is scope of improvement in the total structure. The meeting ended with the usual vote of thanks.