Freezing cold hits power generation in Ladakh

Leh, December 25

The severe cold wave, which is continuing unabated across the Ladakh Union Territory, has badly affected power generation through hydel projects.

This has put the Power Development Department and other agencies in a difficult situation in fulfilling the ever-increasing demand for energy in the winter months.

The department has appealed for cooperation from the consumers through the media to conserve energy in order to avoid cold weather outage during peak hours.

Due to freezing of power canals, three small power houses had to be shut down temporarily. They are power project at Hunder village with 200 Kv capacity, 100-Kv Sumoor Hydel project in the Nubra valley and Igloo Marstelang power project in Leh.

Due to shutdown of these vital projects, the entire Nubra valley is being fed through DG generators during the evening hours.

An official of the Power Development Department, Leh, said low discharge of water in the Indus caused by the cold weather had also affected power generation in the NHPC hydel project.

He said the power generation had drastically reduced from its normal capacity of 45 MW to 12-13 MW. — OC