Punjab Government on Tuesday claimed that the State met the highest demand for electricity during the summer season with the state power utility — Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) — supplying a record 14,207 megawatt (MW) of electricity against the previous year's demand of 13,431 MW.
“PSPCL has been successful in providing uninterrupted power supply to the state’s paddy farmers in accordance with the promise made by the Chief Minister...Electricity has been provided to all agricultural pump sets in the State and eight hours of power supply is ensured daily to the tubewell connections,” said the state Power Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO.
He said that the State Government had issued a notification on May 23, 2022, to provide an eight-hour power supply daily from June 10 to all AP tubewell connections across the State.
“During the summer season from March to July 2022, PSPCL on June 29 has set a record by meeting the peak demand of 14,207 MW electricity which is 5.78 percent higher than the peak demand of 13,431 MW electricity the previous year on July 1, 2021,” he said.
The Minister further said that the total electricity consumption in the State from March to July 2022 is 31,505 million units (MUs), which is 14.23 percent higher than the previous year’s consumption of 27,580 MUs in the corresponding period. PSPCL has broken the previous year's record of supplying 13,431 MW of electricity by successfully meeting the highest demand of 14,207 MW of electricity during the current year.
Despite the increasing demand for power due to rise in temperature during this summer season, PSPCL has successfully provided electricity supply to agricultural consumers for eight hours daily and to all other categories of consumers 24 hours without power cuts, said the Minister.
The Minister said that due to its concerted efforts, the State Government has secured additional provision of about 17 lakh metric tonnes of coal over and above the PSPCL linkage coal. “The State Government also was able to secure an allocation of 1300 MW power from the Central Pool which has helped PSPCL in successfully meeting 24x7 demand of electricity during the paddy season without cutting power to any category of consumers. During the current year, PSPCL has made a banking arrangement of 3047 MW electricity which is 12.85 percent more than 2700 MW last year,” he said.
The Minister informed that in view of the continuous high demand, PSPCL developed the strategy to adopt various demand side management (DSM) measures for reactive power management to optimize resources.
“To compensate for the reactive power requirement of the system, condenser mode of unit no. 3 of Ranjit Sagar Dam plant, which was not being used for many years, has now been made operational to compensate for the 60 Mega Volt Amps Reactive (MVAR) requirement of reactive power in the system,” he said.
“Besides, Mega Volt Amps Reactive MVAR capacity of the system has also been increased through a special drive by the addition of 341.61 Mega Volt Amps Reactive MVAR capacity with 251 units of capacitor banks at the grid substations and addition of shunt capacitors of required capacity at 11 KV feeders to improve the voltage profile of the system,” he added.