HYDERABAD: The peak power demand in Telangana state has dropped by half due to lockdown and night curfew in April and May. The power demand touched a new peak of 13,595 MW on April 4, which fell drastically to 6,347 MW by June 6.
The state government had imposed a night curfew from April 20 followed by a 20-hour lockdown from May 12 and 17-hour lockdown from May 31.
With this, the power demand has come down sharply because of considerable reduction in commercial and industrial power consumption given that establishments and industries were closed during the period.
Though industries were exempted from the lockdown, most of them remained closed due to logistic and labour issues. Those that resumed operations did not work to full capacity. The state's power demand is largely driven by the domestic and agriculture sectors. Normally, domestic power consumption peaks in summer with an increase in the use of air-conditioners, coolers and fans.
However, the temperatures dipped in May this year due to frequent spells of rain across the state under the impact of cyclones in other states. This has led to drastic reduction in domestic power consumption. Ironically, even agriculture consumption also dropped sharply after the Rabi season and ahead of kharif in May.
All these factors contributed to a steep decrease in power consumption across the state. The peak power demand touched an all-time high of 13,595 MW on April 4. The demand was 10,085 MW, when night curfew was imposed on April 20. With the imposition of a 20-hour lockdown from May 20, the demand dropped further to 7,286 MW. Since then, the demand has been hovering in the range of 6,900 MW to 7,500 MW eventually coming down to 6,347 MW on June 6.
