KOCHI: As people turned off electric lights at home and lighter diyas at the doorsteps in support of the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kerala witnessed a sudden drop of 559 MW in power consumption on Sunday night. According to the data shared by the KSEB, the power consumption dropped from 8.45pm to 9.09pm when the nation stood in unison joining the fight against Covid-19.
The KSEB expected only a drop of 350 to 400 MW during the public show of solidarity, but it seems the response was overwhelming. “There are 85 lakh domestic consumers in Kerala and we calculated an average drop of 50 watt per household. We started monitoring the situation on a realtime basis from 8.45pm and the maximum drop was 559 MW. When we took the average between 8.52pm to 9.03pm, the difference was 470 MW,” KSEB chairman N S Pillai told TNIE.
However, it seems the thunderstorm accompanied by heavy winds also contributed to the decline in power consumption. The state witnessed widespread summer rain on Sunday night and the squally winds led to uprooting of trees. Power lines were snapped at many places while feeders and transformers were damaged by lightning strike.
“The weather conditions could also be a reason for the sharp decline in power consumption. In Thiruvananthapuram city, power distribution was disrupted for more than an hour on Sunday night,” he said. The KSEB had prepared an action plan to deal with the situation if the drop in power consumption was beyond expected levels. The KSEB did not find it difficult to deal with the sudden spike in power consumption after 9.09pm as the return to normalcy was staggered. “People were burning diyas till 9.30pm and many waited till 10pm to switch on the home appliances fearing power fluctuations,” he said.