Hydroelectric power generation in Himachal Pradesh, India has reduced 75% to 80% in 2009 winter after several water channels froze across the state, leading to a shortage of 1,000 million units per day. The Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB) has 20 hydro projects across the state, including 120 megawatt (MW) Bhaba, 126 MW Largi and 60 MW Uhl-II. Besides HPSEB's plants, there are 13 more hydropower projects in the state, which are run either by central government or private players.

These plants are also running below their generation capacity since November 2008, officials said.

Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB) Power (generation) Director Sunil Grover said these days, all the 20 hydro plants are producing just 20-23 lakh (2-2.3 million) units daily,” whereas the total generation capacity of these plants is 11.2-11.5 million units per day.

“Power generation in our (1,500-MW) Nathpa Jhakri project (in Kinnaur district) has fallen to seven million units per day from 36 million units,” Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited Deputy General Manager V K Verma said.

Verma attributed the decline in power generation to less water in the Satluj river on which the project is located.

“The discharge in the river has reduced to 50 to 60 cubic metres per second due to freezing of water channels in the catchment of the river,” Verma said.

“This is an annual feature. At present, the state is facing a power shortage of 1,000 million units per day,” HPSEB’s Grover said.

“To fill the gap, we are daily getting power from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi these days under various banking schemes,” Grover added.

The hill state is getting free power from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi under the “contra banking” scheme.

“We (HPSEB) had supplied 150 MW daily to Punjab and Haryana in July and August 2008 and had supplied 28 million units to Delhi in September last year. Now, they are feeding our transformers,” Grover said.

Grover added that the three states would give Himachal Pradesh 440 million units daily till March 2009 under the “forward banking” scheme. Under the scheme, the state will pay the bills in the summer months.

The state is also getting 250-300 million units per day from the central government.

Himachal Pradesh has power generation potential is 20,416 MW, about 25% of India’s total hydropower potential. Only 6,419 MW has been developed so far.

11 projects with a combined generation capacity of 1,124 MW are under execution by the HPSEB, whereas 15 projects with a generation capacity of 1,738 MW are under execution by private sector companies.

The state had generated 6,229 million units of power in 2007-08, out of which 5,029 million units were sold outside the state.