‘Cooling load’ pushes power demand to new record high

Alok KN Mishra

NEW DELHI: The national capital reported its highest ever peak power demand on Tuesday afternoon when it crossed 7,601MW — according to realtime data of State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) — as high humidity levels and a temperature of over 40 degrees Celsius (°C) turned Delhi oppressively hot and unbearably stuffy. Delhi’s heat index (HI) or the ‘real feel’ temperature was around 53°C on Tuesday with the result that air conditioners and cooling devices remained turned on and turned up throughout the day, thereby smashing the previous record of 7,409MW, clocked on July 2, 2019, electricity officials said.

“Today at 3.21pm, the city’s peak power demand clocked the season’s highest of 7,601 MW. It was also the highest ever demand in Delhi in any month. The previous high was 7,409 MW recorded on July 2, 2019,” said an official from Delhi government’s power department, asking not to be named. The official said the “cooling load”, or the load that comes from using cooling gadgets such as air-conditioners, desert coolers and fans, is the main reason pushing up power demand during summer months. “According to our estimate, around 50% of the capital’s power demand in summer is because of the cooling load.”

Delhi has been reeling under hot and humid conditions since the past few days, according to the data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The daytime temperatures have remained above 40°C and that coupled with the high humidity — raised by moist east winds — have made most locations in the national capital unbearably stuffy and hot. The mercury touched 40.2°C at 2.30pm on Monday in Safdarjung, the base weather station, when humidity was at 45%, taking the heat index, or real feel, to 52°C. It was on Tuesday, when at 2.30pm, the air temperature touched 40.4 degrees at Safdarjung, along with a humidity of 45%, to produce a ‘real feel’ of around 53°C. Weather scientists said no relief, in the form of rain, is likely before June 30.

“Before June 9, Delhi’s peak power demand had never crossed the 7,000 MW during the month of June. But this year, it has already crossed 7,000MW nine times this month and once in May,” said a second power official, on anonymity. The high single day peak demand for June last year was 6,921MW, recorded on June 30. In 2020, the demand hit the peak of 6,314MW on June 30 and in 2019, it was 6,769MW on June 30. According to a document seen by HT, Delhi’s power demand has continued to scale to new heights each year.

In March this year, power distribution companies (discoms) said that Delhi’s peak power demand would likely be about 8,200MW, which will be an increase of around 285% over the peak demand of 2,879MW, recorded two decades ago in 2002. If the power demand this summer actually peaks as per the discom projections, it will be the first time that Delhi’s power demand has hit the 8,000 Mw-mark.

Despite several attempts, there was no response from the Delhi government.