Electricity demand soars, puts MSEDCL on its toes

Despite these preparations, MSEDCL officials are nervous. “If the coal shortage persists for long or even worsens, it will be difficult to cater to the summer demand,” said the official.

With mercury levels soaring over the past few days, the state has seen a spike in electricity demand. Coupled with coal shortage, the rise in demand has the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) on its toes. Peak demand on March 1 was 18,754 MW, around 100MW higher than what was recorded last year on the same date. The demand is expected to rise further with the onset of summer, and a nationwide coal shortage is expected to have an impact on the discom’s operations, said sources.

“Since October last year, there has been a shortage of coal. The situation has improved on and off but not significantly so. Fewer rakes are arriving per day,” said a senior official of the state-owned discom.

Meanwhile, the MSEDCL has taken precautionary measures to ensure that the summers are load-shedding free. “We have stored hydro power in case there’s a shortage. Moreover, we’ve already signed short-term purchase agreements to buy power at lower costs at the time of a shortage, if there is any. At this point we are not anticipating any need for load shedding,” said the official.

Despite these preparations, MSEDCL officials are nervous. “If the coal shortage persists for long or even worsens, it will be difficult to cater to the summer demand,” said the official. Last year, peak demand crossed 23,000MW in March and demand had gone up by almost 20 per cent.

A similar situation of shortage last year had forced the discom to carry out loadshedding across the state. While in May last year the discom fell short of around 4,000MW, a coal shortage in September and October had led to widespread outages. Commercial, agricultural and residential consumers in rural as well as urban areas had to bear the consequences. “We are tracking the coal situation and will make all possible efforts to avoid loadshedding,” said the official.

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