Power demand touches all-time high of 189.64 GW on Saturday

New Delhi, January 31

Power demand touched an all-time high of 189.64 GW on Saturday, Power Secretary S N Sahai has said.

“Power demand galloping. All India demand: 1,89,644 MW (189.64 GW) at 10.39 hrs today (January 30) crossed the previous highest all India demand of 1,88,452 MW (188.45 GW) on 28th January,” Sahai has tweeted.

Last week, Power Minister R K Singh had exuded confidence that power demand will cross 200 GW mark soon. On Friday last, Singh had tweeted, “The power demand and supply surged to a new high of 1,88,452 MW at 9:42 am on 28th January 2021. The rate at which we are going, we shall cross 2,00,000 MW very soon.”

In another tweet on the same day, he had said, “Southern region touched the highest ever peak demand of 53,214 MW on January 28, 2021, at 9:49 am”.

On January 20, power demand had touched a record high of 187.3 GW.

All-India power demand had touched a record high of 182.89 GW on December 30 last year.

According to data from the power ministry, the peak power demand met (the highest supply in a day) during January last year stood at 170.97 GW.

The rising power demand shows revival in economic activities leading to higher commercial and industrial demand, which was affected due to the pandemic.

The government had imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 25, 2020, to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Power demand started declining from April as economic activities were disrupted due to COVID-19. The pandemic affected power demand for five months in a row from April to August 2020.

The demand recovered from September onwards. Peak power demand met grew at 1.7 per cent in September, 3.4 per cent in October, 3.5 per cent in November and 7.3 per cent in December. PTI

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