The Hindu : Front Page : Delhi registers highest demand for power

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Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009
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Delhi registers highest demand for power

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Even as the Capital’s power distribution companies scurry to arrange for more power, the demand for electricity continues to soar. The city registered its highest ever demand for power on Monday, using up 4,261 MW.

The high demand was met with rotational load-shedding in several parts of the city, especially in the BSES-served areas. The load-shedding situation, however, showed improvement compared with the past few days.

A day after Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit directed the power distribution company BSES to pull out all stops and arrange power for the city anyhow, consumers were spared load-shedding stretching up to eight hours.

“We had a restful day with the outage lasting just an hour and a half. The power cuts were not as bad as the past week, but we are still hoping that the situation will get better,” said P. Kishen, a resident of Lajpat Nagar I.

Residents of Green Park, Haus Khas and Nizamuddin reported relief from prolonged cuts, but in several other areas like Prasad Nagar local faults continued to give sleepless nights to people.

With their performance under scrutiny, BSES went out to buy expensive power, and in a damage control mode uploaded the load-shedding schedule on its website. The company has also set up two special control rooms -- one each in BRPL and BYPL -- operational 24X7 to monitor the power situation.

Under fire for not procuring enough power for the city, the company claims to have purchased 25 MW from the Power Exchange on Monday and “and will buy an additional 25 MW on Tuesday”.

The company also claimed that while it made a bid for 100 MW from the Power Exchange, it could procure only 80 MW and that too at Rs.13.50 per unit. “Moreover, Delhi, which was to receive 150 MW from the Central quota, received only 100 MW. BSES is expected to receive 100 MW from Uttarakhand from Wednesday and has started to receive 150 MW from Nathpa Jhakri from today,” said the spokesperson.

NDPL officials said the company has made arrangements for 1,071 MW from State and Central generating units and 225 MW through bilateral arrangements.

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