VIJAYAWADA: With mercury levels soaring, the per day energy consumption, which has been touching new highs in the last couple of weeks, recorded the highest demand so far on March 9 with the power utilities meeting a demand of 213 million units (MU). While the State also witnessed the highest unrestricted peak demand on March 10, touching 11,050 Mega Watts (MW), the energy department has projected that the energy consumption and the peak demand will record all-time highs in the coming weeks.
According to the projections by the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) of APTRANSCO and Discoms, the maximum daily energy requirement could touch 215- 220MU and the peak demand 11,300MW0-11,500MW in the coming days.The demand has been consistently increasing over the last four years. The supply of free nine-hour power in the daytime, surge in temperatures and increased economic activities are the major reasons for the demand to shoot up, the officials explained.
Paddy has been sown to a higher extent this year, according to officials, as this Rabi is the first season that agricultural power supply has been given in daytime, a major reason for increase in power demand. While the demand topped 200 MU per day for the first time in the State on February 26, the average consumption has remained over 210 MU in the last 13 days.
As the demand is set to increase in the ensuing summer, the department has prepared a strategy to ensure uninterrupted power supply, including purchase of power from markets besides utilising long-term power generation resources available in the State. “The energy demand on March 9, 2017 was 161 MU and has crossed 213 MU on the same day this year. Increased economic activity is one of the major reasons for the surge in power demand in the State. The government is ready to meet the demand. The utilities are fully preparing to meet the expectations of the government to supply uninterrupted power to every home even in rural areas,” said energy secretary Srikant Nagulapalli. The energy secretary has held a teleconference with officials of power utilities for the implementation of the same.
The Discoms proposed to purchase power from power exchanges to meet the demand in addition to using the long-term power generation resources in the State. “Required coal stocks will be maintained at State thermal plants and measures will be taken to avoid long forced shutdowns to mitigate the non-availability of plants at this crucial time. This will be the key factor for meeting the demand fully in the summer. Utilisation of additional gas generation is also planned by the AP Discoms and even with Naphtha (flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture) to meet the demand, if required,” the officials explained.The APTRANSCO has augmented power transformers and is augmenting transformer capacity at 400KV Vemagiri by adding 500MW Power Transformer (PTR), likely to be ready in 20 days.