Speaking at the Conference of Power Ministers of States and UTs in New Delhi on 12th November 2024, K.G. Kenye, Minister for Power and Parliamentary Affairs, Nagaland, highlighted that the present peak demand in the State is 180 MW, however, the total installed capacity of the State from all sources is 228 MW out of which the State own generation attributes for only 26 MW.

Kenye said that the peak demand is projected to reach 360 MW by 2030 and with negligible generation, the State depends mostly on the central sector allocation and with the rest met from expensive energy market. Hence, developing generation projects has become the priority for which the State is making all efforts, he added.

The press release from the Engineer-in-Chief, Department of Power, also informed that Minister Kenye requested the Union Minister for Power to take favourable action to aid in bridging the demand gap to meet the projected demand of the State by 2030 in order to have the Resource Adequacy in place to meet the growing demand of power in the State.

On the implementation of Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) in the State, the Minister said that there were some technical hitches which delayed the project, with most of the issues resolved, the execution of work will start in the field very shortly. He stated that after successful implementation of the scheme, the ACS and ARR gap of the Department will be greatly reduced with improvement in AT&C losses and enhanced reliability and quality of power supply in the state.

Earlier, Kenye thanked the Union Minister for Power Housing & Urban Affairs, Manohar Lal Khattar, who chaired the Conference, for coming up with a Generation Plan granting 24% of the equity for projects which would be implemented as Joint Ventures (JV). He also thanked the Ministry of Power for including funding for the roads and bridges in the Plan.

Discussion during the meeting included Operational Performance & Financial Viability of DISCOM’s, Resource Adequacy, Pumped Storage Project (PSP) and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). Implementation of RDSS and PM Surya Ghar was also reviewed.

The Minister was accompanied by Er. Wabangmeren Jamir, Engineer-in-Chief (Power), and Er. Moameren, Superintending Engineer (Transmission).