There were intermittent power cuts throughout the day on Monday across the city. These outages were attributed to reduction in supply from several power generation stations in Himachal Pradesh to the National Grid.
An official of the Power Department said there was no shortage of power to the city but because of the shortage in the Grid and the subsequent overload of the systems caused by overdrawal, outages had to be carried out on a rotation basis to prevent a grid collapse.
The peak demand in Delhi on Monday was 5,226 MW and generation of power from stations within Delhi was 1,143 MW. “There’s been a shortage of 3000 MW in the Northern Grid because of the shut down of Nathpa Jhakri, Karcham and one unit of Singrauli power plants. Due to this Agra-Gwalior inter regional link was over loaded resulting in 250 MW shedding in Delhi. Delhi has surplus power but shedding is being carried out for reasons beyond the control of Delhi Transo,” said an official.
High level of silt
The plants have been shut down because of high level of silt.
Demand for power in the city as well as in the Northern Region belt has been on the rise because of high temperatures. While the city’s discoms are expecting a peak summer demand of 6,000 MW this season, the maximum demand has already touched 5,653 MW.