The Hindu : New Delhi News : Power cuts in many areas

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Power cuts in many areas

Staff Reporter

High temperature and humidity level lead to high demand

NEW DELHI: With humidity levels and the temperature remaining high, large parts of Delhi experienced power cuts on Tuesday as the peak demand crossed 3,600 MW and the supply was unable to meet the expectations of the people.

By evening, the maximum demand had touched 3,609 MW which was just a shade lower than the peak demand on Monday which stood at 3,656 MW. Incidentally, the Capital had registered its highest demand this season on May 26 when it had touched 3,725 MW. This was considerably higher than the peak demand last year, which was just 3,209 MW.

The rise in demand has also affected the supply of power to most colonies, which have been experiencing up to four hours of power cuts each day.

Overall the net consumption of about 2,031 million units of power in May this year (up to May 29) is over 10 per cent higher than the consumption during the same period last year which stood at 1,802 million units. Consequently, load shedding during the period has also been higher at 40 million units as against 15 million units last year.

While the demand has been really high, what has not helped matters has been the high level of outages. The unplanned outages on Tuesday stood at around 129 MW.

According to Power Department sources the Capital has been recording its highest demands late in the night. Consequently, the maximum shedding has also been taking place late in the evening.

On Monday, the peak shedding was 352 MW which was recorded at 11-15 p.m. At that time BSES had a shedding of 237 MW while NDPL was supplying 115 MW less than what its consumers needed.

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