The prevailing cold conditions pushed Delhi's peak power demand to a record high of 5,247 MW on Thursday morning, more than the peaks during winters in the past two years as the city witnessed the coldest day of the season.
The minimum temperature of the city settled at 3 degree Celsius, at Safdurjung observatory, Delhi’s base weather station.
According to sources in the discoms, Delhi’s plummeting temperatures are pushing-up the city’s peak power demand.
According to the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) Delhi data, Capital’s peak power demand on Thursday clocked 5247 MW at 10:56 am, highest for this winter so far.
This is more than the peak power demand clocked during the winters of 2022 and 2021. Yesterday, for the first time this winters, it had crossed the 5000 MW- clocking 5126 MW,” they said. “Even during November and December, the city’s peak power demand has been more than that of previous years. During the December of 2022, Delhi’ it surpassed that of 2021 and 2020. During November of 2022 also, Delhi’s peak power demand surpassed the city’s peak power demand in 2021, 2020 and even that of 2019,” they stated.
Informing the reason behind the increasing power demand in the city, sources said that the Cooling and Heating load is the main reason behind Delhi’s power load. “Infact, according to estimates, almost around 50 percent of Delhi’s power demand in summers is because of the cooling load (ACs + Coolers + Fans) and because of the heating load (heaters ad geysers) in winters,” they said. They claimed that the according to the SLDC data, Delhi’s peak power demand this winter can go upto 5500 MW, surpassing the peak winter demand of the last couple of years.
“Last year, it had peaked at 5104 MW and 5021 in 2020. The peak winter power demand in BRPL and BYPL areas had reached 2140 MW and 1122 MW respectively during last winter. This year, it is expected to reach 2289 MW and 1159 MW for BRPL and BYPL respectively,” they underlined.
Giving the details of the measure taken by the BSES to meet the peak power demand of the city, BSES spokesperson said that the back-bone of discoms power-supply arrangements during the winter-months includes long-term agreements from power-plants including Hydro and Delhi based gas fuelled generating stations.
“Additionally, BSES is also receiving 840 MW of solar power from Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited(SECI), 439 MW of wind power, ~ 25 MW from Waste-to Energy.