Industry review - power sector

Over the last few years, capacity
09 October 2000

General highlights

• The power sector at this juncture is plagued by a number of problems. Some of these being inadequate generation capacities, poor capacity utilisation, very high transmission losses and poor project implementation.

• Plant load factor (PLF) in most of the plants has been very low compared to the power plants in other parts of the world.

• The sector fortunes have also been bogged down by resource constraints.

• In India electricity tariffs are a politically sensitive issue and often create turmoil. This is the reason for poor performance of most SEBs and has also resulted in serious financial problems.

• Till date, the players have not started giving adequate consideration to the alternate energy sources for power generation.

• Over the last few years, capacity addition has been consistently falling short of demand. This has resulted in a sharp increase in power shortage across the country.

Sector comments