To meet higher demand of energy in summer months and to ensure that power plants operate with maximum efficiency, the following measures have been taken by the Government:

(i)         All planned shutdowns of units (Thermal and Hydro) have been rescheduled to lean demand period.

(ii)        There shall be periodic review of forced outage by Central Electricity Authority and Power System Operation Corporation.

(iii)       There shall be adequate capacity on bar and to achieve the same even gas based generation shall be synchronized during the period of high demand.  

(iv)     Regular coordination interactions will be held with Central Generating Companies, State Generating Companies, Independent Power Producers, coal companies, Railways and Ministry of Coal.

To improve efficiency of Thermal Power Plants, Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme, which is designed to reduce Specific Energy Consumption, is being implemented.

            As per the Electricity Act 2003, the reasonability of cost of energy is ensured by the respective Appropriate Commissions.  Cost of energy and electricity rates for consumers are different in different States as determined by the respective State Commissions depending upon the various factors like power purchase cost, Aggregate Transmission and Commercial (AT&C) loss, operation and maintenance (O&M) expense, consumer mix etc., which varies from State to State.

The Government is promoting to deepen the power markets with a view to increase efficiency in procurement of energy. Tariff based bidding has been promoted to ensure most competitive rate of bulk power and transmission services.  Also introducing flexibility in use of coal in power plants and merit order despatch at national level has helped in controlling cost of generation. 

                This information was given by Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy , Shri R.K. Singh in a written reply in Rajya Sabha Today.

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