The power demand in the national Capital on Saturday clocked 5,789 megawatt (MW), lower than the record 6,197 MW demand on Friday, even as the Centre assured supply of “as much power as required in Delhi”.
“On six occasions in April 2022, Delhi’s peak power demand has clocked the highest ever in April, each breaking the previous record in quick succession. On April 19, it was 5,735 MW, 5,761 MW on April 20, 5,781 MW on August 21, 5,786 MW on April 27, 6,050 MW on April 28 and 6,197 on April 29,” said sources.
As for India, its peak power demand met or the highest supply in a day touched an all-time high of 207.11 GW on Friday amid ongoing heatwave sweeping through vast swathes of the country increasing demand for electricity.
Union Power Minister RK Singh on Saturday said electricity distribution utilities in Delhi will get as much power as required by them. The Minister said this while reviewing the coal stock situation at thermal power plants, including the plants supplying power to distribution companies of Delhi. During the meeting, state-owned NTPC and DVC were directed to give full availability as per the requirement of discoms.
GAIL India also assured that it will make gas available from all sources — APM, SPOT, LT-RLNG — to gas-based power plants in Delhi. NTPC has also been advised to offer normative declared capacity to Delhi discoms as per their allocations from gas-based power plants under respective PPAs (power purchase agreements).
During the meeting, it was informed that there has been no shortage of electricity supply to Delhi, sources said.
As per data provided by Power System Operation Corporation (POSOCO), in April 2022, the peak demand went up to 6,096 MW (April 29) and there has been no shortage in meeting maximum (peak) demand. The entire energy requirement is also being met in Delhi which is about 123.6 MW (on April 29).
Distribution companies (discoms) in Delhi viz. Tata Power, BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna have been getting power from the power plants based on declared capacity. The installed generation capacity in Delhi is 3,056 MW.
The Delhi Government has surrendered its share of power from NTPC Dadri Stage I (840 MW) and now the total allocation of power from the central generating stations is 3,806 MW while allocation from unallocated power is 30 MW. Thus, a total capacity of 6,892 MW is available for Delhi. The power demand of Delhi is met mainly from allocation from central sector power stations which includes allocation from thermal, hydro, nuclear and gas-based power stations.
NTPC and DVC have PPAs from coal-based plants for Delhi. NTPC supplies power from Dadri (728 MW), Indira Gandhi STPP Jhajjar (693 MW), Singrauli (150 MW), Rihand (358 MW), Unchahar (100 MW) and Kahalgaon (180 MW). DVC has allocation of 400 MW for Delhi- Chandrapura TPS (300 MW) and Mejia TPS (100 MW). All these plants have sufficient coal stock reserves.