Power shortage eases up but officials remain wary

NEW DELHI: The power crisis in India has eased in the past two days. Though the unusually hot summer has ensured demand for electricity remained high, the shortfall reduced in the past two days for the first time since April 1, power ministry data showed on Tuesday, indicating emergency response by the authorities has started showing results.

On May 1, India’s peak power demand was 191,216 MW, but the shortfall was just 207 MW. Peak power shortage was this low last on March 20, when there was a shortfall of 274 MW against a peak demand of 186,640 MW. On May 2, peak power demand was 204,453 MW while the shortage was just 1,773 MW. The improvement in power supply came after five days of high shortage between April 26 and 30, when the average deficit was 8,600 MW, with the highest recorded on April 28 at 10,778 MW. This had led to long outages in many parts of the country.

In April, daily average peak demand was 196,076 MW, while daily average shortage was 4,701 MW. But, in the first two days of May, the daily average peak demand was 197,835 MW, but the daily average shortage was just 990 MW, the ministry data analysed by HT, showed. India’s peak power demand touched record 207,111 MW on April 29.

The decline in electricity shortfall was not only because heatwaves have temporarily eased, resulting in lower power consumption, but also due to an increase in coal production, faster turnaround time of cargo trains and states streamlining electricity generation and supply by increasing coal imports and buying power from exchanges, power ministry officials said.

State-run Coal India achieved the highest production of 534.7 lakh tonne in April, showing 6.02% growth, the coal ministry said on Tuesday. The previous high was recorded in April 2019, when production was 450.29 lakh tonne. Similarly, coal offtake touched 570.55 lakh tonne in April, compared with the previous high of 540.12 lakh tonne in April last year. “During April 2022, India’s total coal production stood at 661.54 lakh tonne. As per provisional statistics, while the total offtake of the coal sector was 708.68 lakh tonne during the month, the power sector offtake touched the figure of 617.2 lakh tonne in April. At the same time, offtake to the power sector from Coal India alone stood at 497.39 lakh tonne,” the coal ministry said in a statement.