Electricity demand in the national Capital touched an all-time high of 7,409 megawatt (MW) on Tuesday. Delhi’s peak power demand first crossed the 6000 MW barrier in 2016 (6216 MW on July 1) while in this year, the demand crossed the mark on 25 days.
BRPL, BYPL and Tata Power Delhi Distribution (Tata Power-DDL) successfully met all-time high power demands of 3159 MW, 1686 MW and 2136 in their respective areas without any network constraint.
Sanjay Banga, CEO of Tata Power-DDL said, “This summer season, the peak demand in Delhi is increasing with each passing day. We are expecting the Delhi peak demand to touch 7500 MW and Tata Power-DDL’s to cross 2250 MW in the coming days.
However, we have made adequate arrangements of power of up to 2500 MW, along with contingency planning, through long-term tie-ups and power banking arrangements, and upgraded network to ensure regular supply in our area of distribution.
The peak power demand was recorded 7241 MW on Monday. This phenomenon load growth in Delhi has been possible on the back of an advanced distribution network and massive reduction in Aggregate Transmission and Commercial (AT&C) losses. To strengthen the distribution network, BSES discoms invested over Rs 800 crore (BRPL ~ Rs 525 crore, BYPL Rs 300 crore) in FY 2018-2019 and ramped-up the network capacity by around 750 MVA.
BSES discoms also installed (new) and augmented around 600 distribution transformers and laid over 650 Kms of cable to strengthen the network.
“To meet today’s power challenges and to get a grip on so many varied and dynamic variables, BSES uses a mix of advanced statistical forecasting models, combined with state-of-the-art weather forecasting solutions, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning and rich domain expertise provided by IMD-POSCO.
These help the discom build advanced models, which leads to high accuracy planning and huge saving of man-hours and time,” said a BSES official.
Delhi’s peak power demand is more than thrice of that of Kolkata and is also more than the power demand of both Mumbai and Chennai put together.
According to experts, running of air conditioners, coolers and fans is the main reason behind the increase in power demand in the national Capital.