Peak power demand in Delhi hits season’s high of 6,780MW: Discoms

This is the eighth time in the 10 days of May that the national capital’s peak power demand has crossed the 6,000MW-mark, officials said.

The peak power demand in Delhi rose to 6,780MW on Thursday, the year’s highest so far and a record for May, largely due to an increase in the usage of cooling appliances in view of the higher-than-normal daily temperatures, power discom officials said.

Delhi has been setting new peak power demand records since 2018, when it first breached the 7,000MW-mark. (HT File)

The previous high for the month was 6,461MW, on May 31, 2019. This is the eighth time in the 10 days of May that the national capital’s peak power demand has crossed the 6,000MW-mark, officials said.

This was only to be expected considering that the city got hotter by a degree or two on Thursday, with the mercury crossing 45°C in north-west Delhi’s Mungeshpur. Safdarjung, Delhi’s base weather station, clocked a maximum temperature of 42.5°C on Thursday — three degrees above normal.

To be sure, Delhi has been setting new peak power demand records since 2018, when it first breached the 7,000MW-mark. This year, power utilities have projected the peak demand to breach 8,000MW. So far, Delhi’s all-time highest peak demand was on July 2, 2019, when it touched 7,409 MW.

On Thursday, the city’s power demand increased by 2.8% in the span of 24 hours and by 7.8% since May 1. On Wednesday, the peak demand was clocked at 6,596MW. Delhi’s peak power demand in May had not crossed the 6,000MW-mark in 2021 and 2020. In 2019, it had crossed the 6,000MW-mark only thrice — May 29 (6,020MW), May 30 (6,240MW) and May 31 (6,461MW). With early onset of summer this year, in April, the peak power demand was higher the previous month and was 100% more than the demand seen in April in 2021, 2020 and 2019, discom officials said.