In its report published on May 18, the government said that the country's peak power demand stood at 221 GW on May 17, of which 1,777 megawatts (MW) could not be met. The peak demand, the highest so far, was met at 2:50 pm on May 17.
On May 16, the demand that was met was 215.11 GW, while the shortage was 314 MW.
The demand on May 17 exceeded the previous high of 215.88 GW, which was met on April 18 when large parts of the country were experiencing similar heatwave conditions.
In 2022, the highest peak demand met was 212 GW on June 10.
The Power Ministry expects the peak demand to touch 230 GW this summer, and Power Minister RK Singh told Moneycontrol the country is prepared to meet the demand.
Last year, the summer season witnessed intense heatwaves, which pushed up electricity demand from industries as well as households, and a coal shortage led to outages in several parts of the country.
To avoid a repeat of the incident this time, the Power Ministry has taken appropriate measures such as mandating all imported coal-based thermal plants to operate at full capacity.
The country’s coal stock situation continues to be “manageable” as of now, according to the data. Of the 165 domestic coal-based thermal power plants in the country, 30 had critical coal stocks as of May 16. Last year at this time, the number of such plants was around 96-110. About 33 million tonnes (MT) of coal are stocked at the thermal power plants.
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