From the position of struggling to meet even the peak demand of 5,700 mw power in June 2014, when Telangana came into being, the State has come a long way to meet a record demand of 10,598 mw on Friday morning as consumption by the agriculture sector touched a new high.
According to officials of the power utilities, the power demand crossed 10,500 mw due to the prevailing dry spell across the State and increase in consumption by the agriculture sector, which is estimated to be about one-third of the total demand met.
Agriculture demand
Agriculture operations, particularly transplantation of paddy and irrigating the standing crops, are in full swing.
“On July 31, the demand touched 10,429 mw and the energy consumption was recorded at an all time high of 220.19 million units,” the officials said, adding that the consumption on Friday (September 7) was also at all time high at 225 mu.
Stating that the power utilities were prepared for such a demand from much in advance and have tied up with short-term purchases to meet the demand, Chairman and Managing Director of Telangana State Genco and Telangana State Transco D. Prabhakar Rao said they were anticipating that the demand could well cross 11,000 mw mark later this month since the dry spell is expected to continue further.
Meanwhile, the State, which was unable to go for energy purchases due to lack of transmission lines from other States in 2014, has sold energy to the needy States when the generation was high in the State during the last monsoon as well as this monsoon season. Heavy inflows into Jurala and Srisailam during July and August months enabled TSGenco to go for hydel generation with full capacity at the hydel stations at the two projects and earn revenue through spot sales in the power exchange.
“We have sold energy worth over ₹100 crore already this season and another spell of rains would enable us go for sale of more energy instead of backing down the generation in our facilities to avail the tied up power from outside the State. Last year, the energy sales worth ₹250 crore were done mostly in September and October months when the projects had heavy inflows,” Mr. Prabhakar Rao explained.
