This month, Delhi's peak demand hit 7,411 MW on July 8. (Representational Image)Parts of South and West Delhi may have power shortage as the Union Power Ministry has decided to stick to its decision to reallocate 500 MW of power from the Dadri-II power plant from Delhi to Haryana.
With the reallocation, the power available to discoms in Delhi has fallen and BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL), which supplies power to South and West Delhi will be hit the hardest.
Delhi was drawing 728 MW of power from Dadri-II, a coal-based power plant. An order issued by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on June 30, dealing with the reallocation of power amongst the distribution licensees in Delhi, stated that the Union Power Ministry had reallocated around 500 MW of Delhi’s share to Haryana with immediate effect, and. The remaining 228 MW will continue to be utilised by Delhi till October 31.
The order also notes that Delhi’s peak power demand hit 7,695 MW on June 29, crossing the previous peak of 7,409 MW for the city recorded in July 2019. BRPL had the highest peak load on June 29 of 3,392 MW.
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A senior official in the Power Department said, “Fortunately for us, the load has come down because of the rains. Otherwise, we are hard hit because 500 MW from our quota has been transferred. The central government has been saying that the Delhi government had surrendered this power in 2015. Thereafter, we have written to them many times that we still need this power. We were getting the full allocation (from Dadri-II) till the end of June.”
This month, Delhi’s peak demand hit 7,411 MW on July 8. However, it had fallen to 6,046 MW on July 17. The peak power demand had remained above 7,000 MW on July 6, 7, 8, and 9 this month. Reports of the Power System Operation Corporation Limited indicate that Delhi has not faced a shortage at the time of maximum demand this month.
The reduction in Delhi’s allocation is only till October end. “Further, in the said letter, MoP (Ministry of Power) also mentioned that from November 1, 2022, entire share of Dadri-II (i.e. 728 MW) will be with Delhi,” said the DERC in its order.
To meet BRPL’s demand, the DERC has temporarily reallocated power from TPDDL to BRPL. BRPL will now draw an additional 124 MW from the Aravalli Jhajjar power plant, while TPDDL will draw 124 MW less from the same plant.
Even with the allocation from Jhajjar, BRPL will be short of 249 MW when compared with what it was allocated earlier from Dadri.
The Union Power Ministry decided to reallocate Delhi’s share from Dadri-II to Haryana in March this year. Thereafter, BSES Rajdhani Power Limited filed a petition before the Delhi High Court arguing that the move would impact power supply to the capital and asked the Centre to examine and evaluate the requirements of Delhi and Haryana, and continued its stay order till a decision is taken by the Ministry of Power.
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