Chennai: Peak summer is months away but the peak power demand has already started soaring due to unrestricted power supply to all consumers including industries.
On February 9 evening, the peak power demand has touched 13, 748 mw as against demand of 11,970 mw recorded last year on the same day. Interestingly, the peak demand is 28 mw short of equalling the all-time high demand of 13,775 mw recorded on June 24, 2014. Till last year power demand normally hovers around 12,000 mw in month of February but this year the demand has gone up revolving around 13,500 mw.
According to data from the load despatch centre, the peak demand has gone up from 13,300 mw on February 1 to 13,605 mw on February 5. The state’s energy consumption has also increased to 289 million units on February 9 from 270 MUs on February 1. A senior Tangedco official attributed the increase in power demand to the unrestricted power supply given to all the consumers including industries, agriculture and domestic.
“Peak power demand has gone up after the lifting of 90 per cent power cut during the peak hours between 6 pm and 10 pm on high tension industries and commercial consumers. Until 2014, the peak demand restriction was lifted till peak wind season alone. Last year, the restriction was not imposed as the state’s power situation improved with the capacity addition and supply of power from long term agreements,” the official said. Besides, the official said that Tangedco has along been supplying three phase power to agricultural consumers since last year.
The official said that with the available thermal power capacity and supply from the long-term agreements, Tangedco would be able to meet the summer demand even if it crosses 14,500 mw.
Tuesday’s peak demand was met despite over 2,200 mw capacity thermal and gas plants were under forced outages due to various repairs, the official said.
