Load shedding inevitable due to low power generation, says Nagaland government

Planning to purchase additional power at a higher cost as a short term measure
Requests citizens to judiciously use electricity

DIMAPUR— Even as people are beginning to grumble about the rampant power outage amid the rising temperature, the department of Power has informed the consumers and the general public that it has been compelled to impose load shedding throughout Nagaland due to low generation from the hydro power stations.

In a press release, the department updated that the state’s power availability is around 147 MW against the peak demand of 180 MW (60MW during the 1990s).

‘The state owned Likimro Hydro Electric Project has also been generating around 6 to 12 MW only out of its installed capacity of 24 MW for approximately 12 hours a day due to poor hydrological condition during this season.

“Due to extreme weather conditions during the last few days, there has been rise in the power demand, resulting in burning of distribution transformers due to overloading especially in Dimapur and the adjoining areas. The Divisions concerned are making all efforts to restore/replace the damaged transformers on war footing,” read the press release.

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It also informed that the state’s power shortage situation could aggravate as one of the units of the Palatana Thermal Power station in Tripura, from where the state gets maximum allocation, will be shutdown from June 2 for annual maintenance.

However, the department said that it is making arrangement to purchase additional power at a higher cost as a short term measure during this crisis in order to tide over the power shortage.

Maintaining that load shedding is inevitable, it said it will implement the measure ‘on rotational basis among the three load centres of the state, i.e, Dimapur, Kohima and Mokokchung load centres’.

“Unfortunately, we anticipate that this power shortage and load shedding crises shall repeat every year. Nagaland is 90% dependent upon import of power. The only long term solution is for a concerted and prioritized effort to reduce this dependency up to the extent possible by developing our own internal Hydro power generation which the Department at present is facing some difficulties to overcome,” it said.

Stating that domestic loads keep increasing due to the rise in usage of high power-consuming electrical appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators, water boilers and rice cookers, etc., the department urged the consumers to judiciously use electricity by switching off appliances when not in use.

This practice, it said, will help reduce the domestic load consumption to a large extent and contribute immensely towards reducing the duration load shedding.