Reeling under an intense heat wave, the national capital on Thursday struggled due to long outages as the demand for electricity supply in the city breached all the past records and shot above 6,000 M
Reeling under an intense heat wave, the national capital on Thursday struggled due to long outages as the demand for electricity supply in the city breached all the past records and shot above 6,000 MW. The power distribution companies resorted to load shedding in several areas as the maximum power load recorded by State Load Despatch Centre was 6,044 MW at 3.36 pm.
At 2.34 pm, Delhi’s peak electricity demand was 6,011 MW. Compared to last year, the rise is an increase of over 20 per cent. The previous record was logged on July 11, 2014 when electricity consumption had touched 5,925 MW. Authorities urged the city residents to stop using non-important power guzzling appliances during peak hours. The state-run Delhi Transco Limited said demand for electricity had gone unpredictably high in the last few days and stated that non-payment of dues by BRPL and BYPL was hampering operations and maintenance activities. People took to social media to vent their frustration as various areas of the city, especially its western, northern and eastern parts, suffered power cuts ranging from one to five hours.
Due to a snag in Delhi Transco Limited’s Bamnauli-Pappakalan 220 KV transmission line for a couple of hours, power supply in parts of west Delhi, including Dwarka and Uttam Nagar, was impacted, officials said. Although Delhi Transco Limited put the onus on the discoms, saying it is not getting its legitimate dues (over Rs 2,000 crores) which have been duly approved by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission. The other areas that suffered electricity outages included Khajuri Khas, Sangam Vihar, Najafgarh and Nizamuddin among others.
