Delhi's peak power demand touches new May high of 7,572 megawatt

Northern states lead the national power demand as heatwave engulfs the region

Electricity demand in the national capital touched 7572 megawatt (Mw) on Monday afternoon, highest-ever for the month of May, even as the sun and hot winds scorched Delhi and neighbouring areas nudging IMD to issue a red alert.

According to the data on the state load dispatch centre (SLDC), Delhi, the maximum load was touched at 1530 hours, crossing the 7,000 Mw mark for the third day in a row.

The last highest peak power demand in Delhi was 7,438 Mw on August 2023.

According to SLDC data, after clocking a record power demand of 7695 Mw in 2022, Delhi’s peak power demand during the summers of 2024 may cross the 8000 Mw for the first time- reaching up to 8200 Mw, said an executive of a power distribution company (discom) in Delhi.

Delhi has three privately owned discoms -- Reliance Infra BSES Yamuna Ltd, BSES Rajdhani Ltd and Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd.

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BSES through its two discoms serves in South, West, East and some parts of Central Delhi to a population of 25 million.

BSES said its two discoms BRPL and BYPL met the peak power demand of 3274 Mw and 1664 Mw, respectively.

A spokesperson of Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd. said, “Today, Tata Power-DDL successfully met the peak power demand of 2178 Mw in our area of operations without any network constraint and power outages, the highest so far in the current season.”

On each of the days of May 2024 so far, Delhi’s peak power demand is more than that of May 2023. In the first 20 days of May last year, Delhi’s peak power demand had clocked 5781 Mw. The highest peak power demand recorded in May of 2023 was 6916 MW, said discoms’ executives citing SLDC data.

Delhi is not the only demand driver in the North.

All states in the region are clocking record high demand. Uttar Pradesh on May 19 had a peak power demand of 27,578 Mw which is the highest among all states in the country. The state’s power demand has surpassed that of industrial states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat. Rajasthan’s peak power demand on the same day was 16,111 Mw, Haryana 10,030 Mw and Punjab 13,056 Mw. The demand in these states is higher in the range of 5-10 per cent over last year.  

At the national level, the peak demand on May 19 was 2,18,499 Mw, up by a minimal 0.6 per cent over last year.