Much before summer, power consumption hits new high

Even before the summer has set in this year, the state on Friday recorded the highestever demand for electricity with consumers using a total of 13,168 Mega Watts of power. One Mega Watt equals one ‘unit’ of electricity, the most commonly used measure of power consumption.

On the same day last year, February 28, the total power consumption in the state was

9,770 MW. The previous highest consumption to cross the

13,160 MW mark – at 13,162 MW — was in combined Andhra Pradesh on March 23,

2014. Friday’s power demand marked a 34 per cent increase from last year’s highest demand in the state for electricity. When the state was formed in 2014, the peak power demand in the new state was 5,661 MW.

The state over the past six years has also witnessed soaring per capita power consumption at 1,896 units per year, which is higher than the national average of 1,181 units, according to a news release from Transco. The average per capita consumption at the time of formation of state was 1,356 units.

According to TSGenco and TSTransco chairman and managing director D. Prabhakar Rao, the rising trend in power consumption is a result of providing uninterrupted power supply to all sections of consumers, free power to farmers and the launching of several irrigation projects involving pumping of water. These include various components of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme.

He said the total number of electricity connections in the state also increased from

1,11,19,990 six years ago to

1,54,14,451 now.