Power hungry: Delhi consumed more power than Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai

Delhi on Tuesday became one of biggest electricity guzzlers in the country, consuming more power than the average demand of Mumbai and Chennai put together and three times that of Kolkata.

Peak demand in Delhi touched 7,016 MW at 3:26 pm on Tuesday, crossing the 7,000 MW mark for the first time.

The average power demand of Chennai is 1,500-1,800 MW, Mumbai is 3,700 MW and Kolkata is 2,100 MW.

The government said electricity consumption in Delhi has grown by almost 42% between 2006-07 and 2017-18.

“Peak demand has grown by staggering 64% between 2006-07 and 2017-18. On an average, an electrified household in Delhi consumed about 260 kiloWatt-hour (kWh) of electricity monthly in 2016-17, which is almost three times the national figure of 90 kWh,” an official of the power department said citing a CSE report, which has been endorsed by the Delhi government.

The Delhi government said that though there were reports of power outages in some parts of the city, no major distribution or transmission issues were recorded.

“Residents of areas such as Uttam Nagar and Ashok Vihar are facing problems because the electricity load has increased substantially there. Power utilities are not finding space to even put mobile transformers. But, we will are looking for other ways,” said principal secretary (power) Varsha Joshi.

Other areas that faced intermittent power cuts include Madapur Khadar, Burari, Patparganj, Uttam Nagar and Deoli.

Keeping up with the soaring power supply, however, has not been easy for the Delhi government, which has been raising the issue of coal shortage at thermal power plants over the past two months.

“The coal situation at thermal power plants in Dadri, Jhajjar and Badarpur has still not normalised. The supply status changes every day but it is not hindering Delhi’s power distribution system as we have increased power generation in three of our in-house gas-based plants,” Joshi said.

On June 27, state power minister Satyendar Jain had sought the intervention of union power minister RK Singh on the depleting coal stocks at these power plants.

Delhi’s daily allocation from the three coal-based power plants is 2,325 MW. But the minister had then pointed out that the plants were getting only about 1,400 MW. As much as 80% of Delhi’s power comes from coal fired plants.

Power discoms said that Tuesday’s power demand was an increase of over 250% over the peak power demand of 2,879MW in 2002. “This is the 11th time this year that Delhi’s peak power demand has surpassed last year’s all-time high of 6,526MW,” a BSE spokesperson said.

The peak power demand in BSES Rajdhani Power Limited area of south and west Delhi, clocked 3,081 MW on Tuesday and 1,561 MW in BSES Yamuna Power Limited’s area of central and east Delhi.

Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL), which supplies power to north and north west Delhi, recorded a consumption of 1,965 MW.