Chandigarh’s power demand soars by 78 MW in past one week

Chandigarh, May 20

With temperatures soaring to 44°C, the power demand in the city has surged from 280 MW to 358 MW over the past week. This spike in electricity usage was due to excess use of cooling appliances such as ACs and desert coolers.

With approximately 2.40 lakh power consumers, the city receives 345 MW of power from April to September. To address the rising demand, the Union Power Ministry has already approved a 5% increase in supply. This approval translates to an additional 200 MW, bringing the total available power to 545 MW for the UT.

In a bid to ensure a smooth power supply during the summer, the UT Electricity Department had requested the Union Ministry of Power to augment the unallocated power quota for the city from the current 9% to 14%, from April to September this year.

Chandigarh receives 345 MW of power to meet the needs of its approximately 2.40 lakh consumers. The study revealed a peak demand of 280 MW around 10 am during summer, escalating to 410 MW between 2 pm and 5 pm.

A senior officer said last year also they had received an additional 200 MW. The department has also secured a regular supply of 30 MW from a Gujarat-based government agency from non-renewable energy sources.

Power consumption is likely to go up by nearly 93,458 kilowatt (kW) this year as power consumers are expected to increase by nearly 10,000. As per the connected load growth projections approved by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC), all categories of consumers will be requiring 17,48,987 kW by 2024-25, whereas the power consumption in 2021-22 was 16,55,529 kW.

The UT Electricity Department had filed a petition before the JERC for the approval of the projections for the multi-year control period from 2022-25. By keeping 2020-21 as the base year, the commission had approved a load of 16,86,035 kW for 2022-23, 17,17,183 kW for 2023-24 and 17,48,987 kW for 2024-25.

A maximum usage of power was approved for the domestic consumers and non-domestic consumers. The domestic consumers will need nearly 57,640 kW more in 2024-25 in comparison to 9,22,872 kW energy consumed in 2021-22. Similarly, non-domestic consumers will be requiring 33,863 kW more in 2024-25 compared to 5,04,304 kW energy consumed in 2021-22.

As per the approval, all categories of power consumers are likely to be increased by nearly 10,328 by 2024-25. The domestic consumers are likely to increase by 7,321 by 2024-25 in comparison to 2,00,945 consumers in 2021-22. The commission has projected a growth of non-domestic consumers by nearly 2,588 by 2024-25, whereas the number of such consumers was 26,625 in 2021-22.