Power demand in Delhi soars to record 6651 MW

The peak power demand broke all previous records at 3.36 PM on Friday touching 6,651 MW. Last year, the highest peak power demand was recorded at 6,526 MW on June 6, said a spokesperson of power discom BSES

delhi Updated: Jun 01, 2018 23:25 IST

An employee works on electric pylons at a power station in Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi June 8, 2012. (Reuters File Photo)

Delhi’s power demand spiked to an all-time high of 6,651 megawatts (MW) on Friday afternoon and may go up to 7,000 MW in the coming days as the city sweats it out in near-heatwave conditions, straining the electricity distribution network though officials have said there is no risk of power cuts for now.

This year’s increase represents a big jump over the peak demand logged last year, when consumption in the city crossed the 6,000MW-mark for the first time on May 19. By June 6, the peak current draw had risen to 6,526MW.

“Power utilities, on Friday, successfully met the peak demand of 6,651MW at 3.36 pm as the temperature hovered around 42°C. Delhi consumes more power than any metro city in India. If you look at Delhi’s consumption pattern over the years, the city had a power demand of only 2 MW in 1905. Now, that much electricity or even more, up to 5MW, is used by a mall alone. Ten years ago the demand was 4034 MW,” an official from the power department said.

While there has been no major blackout, many neighbourhoods have been going through outages mostly due to local faults.

“We are facing power cuts everyday between 6 and 7:30 am. It lasts for over an hour and then for the rest of the day, the outages are sporadic,” said Suchismita Thakur, a resident of Mayur Vihar Phase I.

Some of the other affected areas include, Preet Vihar, Mayur Vihar Phase III, Seelampur, Krishna Nagar, Uttam Nagar west, Rohini east, Rithala, Chhattarpur and Karawal Nagar.

While outlining a summer action plan on March 8, Delhi’s power minister Satyendar Jain said the city was equipped to deal with demands of up to 7,000MW.

This year, the month of May recorded its highest ever power consumption. “Last month, the city consumed more than 6000 MW of power for eight days. Usually, the month of May sees only two such days when the power demand crosses 6000 MW,” a BSES spokesperson said.

Earlier this week, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said a coal shortage in thermal power plants supplying to Delhi threatened to plunge the city into a series of blackouts. But the matter was resolved with the extra coal being rushed to the plants.

“Apart from central sources, we are also arranging power through inter-state exchanges and bilateral trading. As of now, there is no shortage of power in the city,” a distribution company spokesperson said.