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LCG Publishes 2024 Annual Outlook for Texas Electricity Market (ERCOT)

LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.

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LCG Publishes 2024 Annual Outlook for Texas Electricity Market (ERCOT)

LCG, October 10, 2023 – LCG Consulting (LCG) has released its annual outlook of the ERCOT wholesale electricity market for 2024, based on the most likely weather, market, transmission, and generator conditions.

Read more

Industry News

$10.7 Billion a Year Missing Off India's Power Wires

LCG, Jan. 8, 2001Indian power minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday promised financial assistance to states that whipped their electricity boards into shape. To get the help, the state electricity boards would have to make sure that every kilowatt of electricity generated reached a paying customer.

"Our system is losing about rupees 50,000 crore a year due to various factors including thefts and slippages of transmission and distribution," Prabhu said. While an Indian rupee is worth 2.141 cents U.S., a crore is 10 million of them, and Rs 50,000 crore is 500 billion rupees, or $10.7 billion.

In India, a state electricity board takes possession of electric power as it leaves the power plant and delivers it to its customers. Along the way, perhaps a third of the power is stolen or given away. Some fearless Indians simply throw a wire over a transmission line, hook the other end to a transformer and light up a neighborhood. Others are more professional and climb a pole to make their connection.

Aren't they seen? Cannot they be apprehended? Yes, to both. But they are not prosecuted. Instead they bribe a local official of the electricity board. Those bribes represent the greater portion of the official's income, so the practice continues. To the power thieves, the electricity is cheap. And the official can live as he thinks he should be able to live.

More power is given away by corrupt electricity boards and yet more is sold at rates below the cost of generation to farmers. The Indian government wants these practices stopped.

Some in India shrug at what they call "slippage" but Prabhu called it a colossal national loss. He said the electricity boards must be "depoliticized" immediately and that state governments must stop pressuring the boards to show favoritism with electricity rates.

State boards that tighten up their systems will be rewarded. "We are working out customized memorandum of understandings with each state for reforms. Those who agree will get financial assistance for which I am talking to the World Bank," Prabhu said.

Prabhu said India needs $171 billion in investment if it is to meet its goal of power-on-demand by 2012, but pointed out that three-quarters of that sum could be saved by eliminating the "slippage."

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