Power demand jumps by 45000 MW in a year
New Delhi, June 12: India's power demand this year has jumped by a record 40000-45000 MW per day, as an intense heat wave sweeps through northern India, the economy expands, and electricity reaches millions of unelectrified homes, power minister RK Singh has said.
A massive addition in the generation capacity, integrating the country into one transmission grid and strengthening of the distribution system during eight years of the Narendra Modi government is ensuring 23 to
23.5 hours of electricity supply, he said in an interview with PTI.
India's electricity demand on June 9 was recorded at an all-time high of 210792 mega watts, and 4712 million units of electricity were consumed.
Power plants are operating at full throttle to meet this demand, and the government has ordered coal import to meet the shortfall in domestic supplies.
"The whole power sector has changed (in the last eight years)," Singh said. "Before (2014), we were power deficit, load shedding was endemic".
According to a survey by an NGO, the average availability of power in rural areas was about
12.5 hours at the national level. "Today it is 22.5 hours," he said.
A power deficit nation with an average shortage of anywhere between 17 and 20 per cent, India has been transformed into a power surplus country.
Detailing the steps, he said in eight years, 169000 MW of capacity was added to take electricity generation capacity to over 400000 MW (or 400 gigawatts). Against this, the peak demand is just 215 GW.
Power plants operate at run rates much lower than their capacity. This, in the case of renewable energy units such as solar power, is just onefifth of the rated capacity.
Also, the whole country was connected into one grid with one frequency after 1.66 lakh circuit kilometres of transmission lines were laid. This was supplemented by strengthening of the distribution system with the replacement of old lines, the addition of high and low tension lines, transformers, substations and feeder lines.
"Today, India is the world's largest single frequency electricity grid," he said.
"Earlier, we could transfer about 37000 MW (of electricity) from one corner to the other. Now we can transfer 112000 MW."
Net results: availability of power has increased. "Our system says in the rural areas, availability is now 23 hours on an average and in urban areas, it is almost about
23.5 hours by and large," the minister added.
Singh said thousands of villages and hamlets that hadn't seen electricity in
70 years were provided connectivity. As many as
28.6 million unelectrified households—which is more than the combined population of Germany and France—were provided electricity.
However, domestic production of coal—the feedstock for most of the power generated in the country—hasn’t kept pace with the spurt in demand.
The minister said power plants have been asked to use 10 per cent imported coal for their power generation requirements.
Out of the 204.9 GW of installed coal-fired power generation capacity in India, around 17.6 GW or
8.6 per cent, is designed specifically to run on imported coal. Other power plants import the fuel for blending with domestic coal.
Coal India Ltd has already floated tenders for the import of coal, the minister said.
Singh said the government was working to move domestic coal to power plants, as well as imported one to prepare for the monsoon season when output from local mines comes down.
On renewable energy, Singh said, "Today, established renewable capacity is 158000 MW and another 54000 MW is under construction".