Electricity demand again breaks record as mercury keeps soaring
NEW DELHI: India’s electricity demand touched a record high of 211,856MW on Friday, making it the third consecutive day when power consumption breached previous records, Union power minister RK Singh said.
“In an outstanding consecutive streak, the maximum all-India demand met on June 10, 2022, was 211,856 MW at 1447 hours, breaking the previous high of 210,793 MW recorded just a day before (Thursday),” Singh said.
The previous national peak power demand was recorded on Thursday at 210,793 MW. The highest demand until last year was 200,570MW, recorded on July 7, 2021. This year, the government is projecting the peak electricity demand to go up to 215,000MW once monsoon sets in large parts, increasing humidity levels and usage of air conditioners, an official said, asking not to be named.
Many states in the country have faced hours of outages during the current summer because of an unrelenting surge in power demand due to a heatwave, rapid economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic, and a shortage of coal to generate power.
The situation is expected to further in the monsoon season if cash-strapped power producers do not have adequate coal stock. Generally, coal offtake from mines gets affected during the monsoon.
The shortfall in the peak power demand on Wednesday was 936 MW – better than the national peak shortfall of 10,778 MW recorded on April 28, when the peak power demand was 204,653MW.
India has been suffering from extreme heat conditions this summer, with many experts linking the early onset of an intense summer to the climate crisis. The steep electricity use caused widespread power cuts in April, as the authorities scrambled to manage demand amid dwindling coal supplies.