NEW DELHI: The sharp rise in temperature has led to a sharp increase in the consumption of power in the Capital. On Saturday, when the temperature rose to 44.9 degree Celsius, the maximum power load registered was 3,742 MW. To meet this excess demand, the Delhi Government's Power Department is pinning its hopes on Madhya Pradesh and the Damodar Valley Corporation.

"Even though we are in a comfortable situation now, we want to get an additional 100 MW from Madhya Pradesh as a contingency measure. This will be a stopgap arrangement to help us tide over outages," said Delhi Transco Director Operations S.R. Sethi.

"The DVC will inform us about the availability of power in the next few days. The power that we get from DVC, however, will be on round-the-clock basis for the month of June," he said.

Officials said that with the rise in temperature, the demand for power had jumped considerably. "On Friday, the total energy consumed was 82.1 mu, which is a new high, and the peak demand was 3,891 MW. This demand has risen by more than 300 MW in a year, during the corresponding period in June 2006 the peak demand was 3,534 MW," an DTL official said.

With the Northern Grid under immense pressure from various States overdrawing power, the frequency of the gird has been threatening to dip below the mandatory 49.5 Hz.

Consumers in several parts of the city had to face power cuts as the discoms had to resort to load shedding.

The officials said consumption is expected go up further in the forthcoming days: "The load will increase as the use of appliances like air-coolers and air-conditioners goes up. The peak demand has already touched a high of 3,901 MW and is likely to surpass 4,100 MW."

On Saturday, the city generated a total of 1,197 MW of power to meet its demand. The generation from the Badarpur thermal power plant stood at 632 MW, 151 MW came from the Gas Turbine, and Indraprastha supplied 83 MW. Pragati Power and Rajghat supplied 274 MW and 58 MW respectively.

Pointing to the gap in supply and demand of power, the discoms and the Power Department have issued an advisory to consumers to save power.

"We are requesting people to cut down on consumption and save as much as possible. We are promoting the use of CFLs and asking people to refrain from using too many appliances," said Mr. Sethi.

The discoms too are asking people to conserve energy. "Under our summer action plan, we have made all the necessary arrangements, all hydraulic tower wagons, breakdown restoration vans, mobile generating sets, emergency power restoration vans, have been put on alert. But system constraints in the Northern Grid have put a strain on the grid network, so we appeal to the customers to use electricity judiciously and adopt the habit of switching off," said a BSES official.

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