2 weeks Ago By Venkadesan S
Chennai: In 2023, Tamil Nadu's peak power demand reached 19,387 megawatts (MW) on April 20. However, in 2024, this demand crossed that mark on March 22, a month earlier. TNPDCL officials anticipated it would repeat this year too and signed power purchase agreements to meet the spike in demand during the summer months.
To date, the all-time high peak power demand in state was 20,830 MW recorded on May 2, 2024. The record for maximum per-day electricity consumption of 454.320 million units (Mu) was registered on April 30, 2024.
While the peak power demand was expected to reach 22,000MW this year, the number has not crossed the 20,000MW mark yet, officials said. The overall per-day power consumption has touched 400Mu on only a few days. Compared to 2023, the spike in peak power demand in 2024 was 7.
32%. TNPDCL officials said the demand was expected to soar by 6% this year, but the difference is only around 3% so far. Officials attributed the reduced power demand to the weather.
"Normally, cool weather would withdraw by the end of Feb, but the nights remained cool till March this year. Also, it doesn't usually rain in April in TN, but several districts including Chennai witnessed rains this year. All these factors, along with long weekends due to govt holidays, contributed to reduced power demand so far," said an official.
However, TNPDCL forecasts that the demand for electricity will go up in the coming days. "We expect that the demand will increase between April 25 and May 10," he added..
