As the city continues to simmer under the intense heat with maximum temperature settling at over 40 degrees Celsius on Monday, national Capital’s peak power demand reached to 5,268 MW on Saturday which is seasons’ highest.
A senior BSES official said that peak power demand clocked 5268 MW which is marginally more than the 5094 MW recorded last year. “Infact, this is the first time this month, Delhi’s peak power demand has crossed last year’s peak on any given day. Peak power demand in May 2019 was 6461 MW, recorded on May 31,” he said.
On their part, BRPL and BYPL successfully met the peak power demand of 2448 MW and 1227 MW respectively. Last year, Delhi’s peak power demand had clocked 7409 MW. In BRPL’s area, it was 3211 MW and 1686 MW.
The official said that arrangements have been firmed up by BSES discoms to source adequate electricity to meet the power demand of over 44 lakhs consumers. “These arrangements include long term PPAs and banking arrangements with other states. In case of unforeseen contingencies because of low generation and outages in power plants, the discoms will purchase short-term power from the exchange,” he said.
“If we compare the peak power demand of April 2020 with that of May 2020, Delhi’s peak power demand has already increased by around 56%. Peak power demand in April was 3362 MW and in May (May 24) 5268 MW,” he said.
The official further said that 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.”
Meanwhile, Tata Power Delhi Distribution (Tata Power-DDL) successfully met the peak power demand of 1493 MW on Sunday Night without any network constraint and power outage as Delhi touched season’s high of 5268 MW amidst the ongoing heat wave.
“This summer season, Delhi is expected to witness an increase in demand with each passing day as everyone accustoms to the new normal and returns back to routine. We have made adequate arrangements of power of up to 2500 MW along with contingency planning, through long-term tie-ups, bilateral imports & power banking arrangements with other states, and upgraded network to ensure regular supply in our area of distribution.” said Ganesh Srinivasan, CEO, Tata PowerDDL.