Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh recorded a 15 per cent increase in energy demand and growth up to October, 2023 compared to the corresponding period last year.
Energy special chief secretary K. Vijayanand held a review meeting with APTransco, APGenco and AP Discoms on Monday. He said the demand was exceptionally high during the recent times due to various reasons.
“The power utilities performed extremely well to meet the rising demand. The demand growth rate was abnormal due to the El Niño effect with no adequate rainfall during the south-west monsoon in 2023-24, he said, and added that there was no inflow to the major reservoirs. Another reason is the prevalence of unprecedented heat wave conditions.
The special CS said that despite facing unfavorable conditions, the power utilities supplied a maximum energy of 263.24mu on 16-6-2023 with nil defects, and met a maximum demand of 13,028mw on October 19, the highest till date.
He said that they were able to achieve this with proper planning and by procuring power from the Energy Exchanges and through Open Access transactions. The energy demand from April to Oct, 2022 was around 42,140mu while the demand for the same period in 2023 went up to around 48,522mu. In October 2022 alone, the energy demand was 5,556mu while it went up by 30.8 per cent in October this year to 7,270.55mu.
The special CS said that under the guidance of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and energy minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy and the power sector staff, the utilities were adopting the best transmission and distribution practices to enhance power availability to the consumers.
AP Genco MD and AP Transco JMD, K.V.N. Chakradhar Babu stated that the APGenco was making the optimum power generation by following the best operation and maintenance management practices in order to maximise reliability and availability of the power generating units.
He said the grid demand was maintaining at around 220-245mu from April to October, 2023 against the demand of around 190-200mu in 2022. The expected generation of hydel power was not met due to less rainfall, he said.
In order to improve thermal power generation, APGenco is monitoring the coal stocks and coordinating with the Union ministries of coal and railways for continuous supply of coal for uninterrupted running of units at their rated capacities, he said.
Thermal power generation had gone up to 7,102mu from April to October, 2023 from 14,948mu earlier.
The APGenco MD said that to meet future grid demand, his entity took many steps. A new super critical thermal unit of 800mw at Sri Damodara Sanjeevaiah thermal power station was added into the grid in March, 2023. The trial operations of another new supercritical thermal unit of 800mw at Dr NTTPS were going on and it attained a load of 400mw with coal firing. The preparatory activities were being made for full load trial operation in December.
