Sizzling Delhi quenches power thirst, demand reaches all-time high of 6,188 MW

With Delhi’s power load reaching an all-time high of 6,188MW on Friday, electricity supply was affected in many areas of the Capital.

With Delhi’s power load reaching an all-time high of 6,188MW on Friday, electricity supply was affected in many areas of the Capital.

The increase in power demand had led to load-shedding. (Hindustan Times)

The State Load Despatch Centre recorded the maximum power load of 6,188 MW at 3.18pm as against 6,044 MW on Thursday. The demand increased by over 8% in just 48 hours, officials said.

To take stock of the situation, power minister Satyendra Jain met officials of the discoms, BSES and TPDDL. He directed them to immediately depute additional teams to address the complaints of power consumers.

“The minister directed the power department to seek three-hourly reports on consumer complaints from the discoms. Delhi’s power load in the third week of May in 2015 and 2014 was 5,027 MW and 4,512 MW,” said a government official.

Areas in south Delhi that witnessed outages were South Extension, Defence Colony, Nizamuddin, Vasant Vihar, Ashram, east of Kailash and Jangpura.

Even Union power minister Piyush Goyal had to face a blackout at the National Media Centre. He was addressing the media about the Centre’s initiatives to boost electricity supply in the country.

Read: Blistering Delhi turns power guzzler, demand crosses 6,000 MW

“For the past two-three days, we have been facing long power cuts. Usually, the outages last for 10-20 minutes. But the power cut on Thursday started at 8pm and ended around 7am on Friday. It is difficult to get some sleep in such blistering heat,” said Sanjeev Kumar Bansal, an Ashram resident.

In east Delhi, Gandhi Nagar, Krishna Nagar, Yamuna Vihar witnessed load-shedding, while in west Delhi, Janakpuri, Dwarka, Uttam Nagar, Vikaspuri and Rajouri Garden faced outages.

Taking up the residents’ complaints, Jain asked the officials of the discoms why so many consumers were facing power cuts.

“On Thursday, 4,775, 5,219 and 1,383 complaints were registered at the call centres of BYPL, BRPL and TPDDL,” said the government in a statement.

Jain directed the discoms to depute more staff at the call centres and add more telephone lines.

(With inputs from Kabir Upmanyu & Sruthi VS)