Power demand dips during first fortnight of May

CHENNAI: Pan-India power consumption data for the first fortnight of May (May 1-15) indicates that the expansion of Covid-19 lockdowns across the country has begun having an impact on electricity demand.

While the month of April 2021 had recorded lower consumption than March 2021, the fall had been marginal-going from 121.51 billion units (BU) to 119.27 BU. However, the first fortnight of May 2021 has witnessed a far steeper fall of 12 per cent compared to the previous 15-day period.

Power ministry data shows that compared to the 58.65 BU of electricity consumed pan-India in the last two weeks of April 2021, the first two weeks of May recorded only 51.67 BU of demand.

In fact, power consumption demand has been on a steady sequential fall since the beginning of this financial year as incremental restrictions to control the second wave have begun taking away commercial and industrial demand-from 60.62 BU in the first fortnight of April 2021 to 51.67 BU in the first fortnight of May.

“March was a good month in terms of recovering demand, but commercial establishments like malls and shopping districts began to be closed down beginning April and this has now accelerated.  Commercial demand has been hit hard and the imposition of wider lockdowns in May are bound to have an effect on industrial demand too,” said a senior executive at a state-run discom.

While bad, the dip is nowhere close to the demand devastation recorded during the peak of the nationwide lockdown imposed last summer. In the first two weeks of May 2020, consumption had come in at just 43.55 BU.

For the month of April 2020, this figure had stood at just 84.55 BU-down from 110.11 BU in April 2019. For the entire month of May 2020, power demand had stood at 102.08 BU. India Ratings and Research said in a note last week that containment measures would hit power consumption during the first quarter.