The residents of Madurai and southern districts are once losing their sleep over past few days with the return of night time power cuts again after a pronged respite. Several areas in the city faced power cuts consecutively for the last three nights for durations ranging between one and two hours.
According to residents, apart from the scheduled duration of three-hour load shedding, they were experiencing another spell of power cuts for three hours in the day time besides one more hour in the late night hours. Another factor most agitating them was the lack of any fixed pattern in these power cuts.
The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation blamed the increase in unscheduled load shedding on the sudden decline in power generation from wind mills. A senior official in the TANGEDCO Madurai Region told The Hindu here on Tuesday that this was primary due to a sudden decline in wind power caused by unseasonal rains in recent days. The TANGEDCO Madurai Region comprises the five southern districts of Madurai, Dindigul, Theni, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram.
Power generation from wind mills fell from 3,575 MW on Friday evening to 147 MW on early hours of Monday. TANGEDCO officials said that a power generation of at least 3,000 MW from wind mills was needed to manage the power grid without increased load shedding.
While the consumption from wind mills stood at 70.919 million units (MU) on Friday (July 13), it began to decline to 53.106 MU on Saturday, 31.889 MU on Sunday and finally fell to just 15.973 MU on Monday.
Even though rains cause a decline in power consumption on account of reduced use of fans and air-conditions by domestic consumers and motor pumps by farmers, it has not been sufficient to offset the reduced wind power generation, officials said.
As on May 31, Tamil Nadu, with 7025.325 MW of total installed capacity, continues to occupy the first place in India in harnessing of wind energy and accounts for around 40 per cent of country’s total capacity of 17.389.31 MW.
