India to witness high power demands in 2014

Forecasters have predicted an extended summer in India this year, suggesting that electricity demand may go up because of consumer consumption through cooling appliances.

Luckily, however, moderate weather in April kept power consumption at bay and almost flat throughout a month when the power consumption usually begins increasing drastically. April had also seen thunderstorms and showers in parts of the country which brought relief for distribution companies that have a limited paying capacity and usually face congestion in power transmission.

Power consumption in the summer months goes up not only because of the increase in consumer demands as the summer heat increases but also because the El Nino, a weather condition that affects monsoon rains in India, may trigger higher demand for irrigation towards the end of summer. Delayed rains could hurt the operations of hydropower stations and worsen the power situation. Also, if the forecasters’ predictions are right, the delayed monsoons will be a further threat to power shortage.

"According to weather projections, we are expecting an extended summer and higher electricity demands to continue till August instead of July," said a top executive of a state utility.

Commenting on the scenario of demand and supply of electricity in India, Indian Energy Exchange director for business development, Rajesh Kumar Mediratta, said, “Since 2009, India has added close to 70,000 MW of generation capacity, which would have been good enough to take care of the country's power demands if we had built adequate transmission capacities. A substantial chunk of power generated in India remains locked in certain regions due to lack of evacuation capacities."