Andhra Pradesh imposes 50% power cuts on industrial sector

The Andhra Pradesh State Power Transmission Corporation (AP Transco) has decided to resort to 50 percent power cuts to the industrial sector, as the southern state struggles under inadequate power generation resources and market purchases to meet the rising power demand amid the sweltering heat.

The YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government has decided to continue the load reliefs, or power cuts, to the industrial sector at least for the next 15 days. This announcement came after Andhra Pradesh’s Energy Secretary B Sreedhar reviewed the power supply position in the state.

Over the last few days, the state power utilities were resorting to emergency power cuts to the agricultural as well as domestic sectors across the state for a few hours daily.

In a statement, the AP Transco said the energy secretary was “constrained to direct the power utilities to implement Load Reliefs to Industrial Sector in order to supply power to agriculture consumers so that the standing crops are not affected and to domestic consumers in the light of present heat wave conditions prevailing in the state.”

The state power distribution corporations “have proposed to issue 50 percent load relief (power cuts) for the continuous process industries and 1 day in a week (except power holiday) for the non-continuous process industries for about 15 days and utilise the power only during the day time, till the demand subside in the State,” said the AP Transco.

The AP state government-owned power utility said the maximum demand of approximately 235 million units of power was met on April 1 successfully with the available generation resources and market purchases of around 64 million units.

There is an increase in demand for power primarily due to resumption of economic activities in the state with ease in Covid pandemic conditions, where most states were relying on power exchanges to meet their electricity consumption, said the Transco.

Andhra Pradesh is currently facing a deficit of around 40-50 million units per day of power after utilising all the long-term generation resources to meet the daily grid demand, said AP Transco, adding that the deficit was to be met from available power markets.

“In the recent days, required quantum of power is not getting cleared in the exchanges due to non-availability of power across the country,” said AP Transco, adding that the “shortage is seen across the country and most industrial states like Gujarat are implementing Load Reliefs to domestic, agricultural as well as industrial sectors.”

The state government views that the required quantum of power was not available in the power exchanges owing to crop-end season and heat wave across the country. It hopes that demand will come down in the next 15 days as per the historical trend.