Power demand shocks Telangana, Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have faced the highest ever power demand this June. With no gas supply due to the recent pipeline explosion and no hydel generation, there is no immediate respite unless heavy showers bring down the demand.

The severe shortage has hit normal life forcing people to schedule their work around the power supply hours. Businesses and industries are thus losing a lot of work hours every day. Officials of both states are relying on the rains to bring down power demand and step up hydel generation to deal with the highest demand ever for this time of the year.

“It is unusual to have no hydel generation in June, and clearly the current power demand is the highest till date in the Andhra Pradesh region,” said an official. While many citizens are facing morning power cuts, night-time power cuts are a bigger problem with two to five hours of cuts being imposed every night.

Read: Andhra Pradesh plans to save 20% energy

The power cuts are affecting water supply in localities across the city. “We suffered a six-hour power cut in our area on Saturday night in addition to the four hours of cuts throughout the day. The powers cuts are unannounced and are for long hours, making it difficult to carry out normal household work. Even pumping of water is not possible when there is a power cut and this means that we miss out on water for two to three days sometimes,” said P. Prasanna, a resident of Srinagar Colony.

Officials, however, say that AP’s power crisis might subside by a large extent in the next two weeks with additional power coming in. Transmission constraints are also likely to be decreased as the Talcher Corridor will open up soon.

In the meantime, however, both states continue to reel under severe power shortage of between 40 to 60 MU each, resulting in night-time cuts along with six to 10 hours of day-time cuts. While AP has the hope of getting an additional 650 MW within the next one or two weeks, Telangana might get around 300-400 MW of additional power through purchases and allocation from NTPC Jhajjar.

Meanwhile, the gas pipeline explosion has resulted in the entire gas supply being stopped. While the pipeline is currently being repaired, there is no surety about how long it will take.