TELANGANA : ‘Power utilities geared to meet demand of 11,000 MW’
The power demand touched the maximum of 10,122 MW at 10.49 a.m. on Wednesday as against the maximum of 9,979 MW on this day last year.
Notwithstanding the huge consumption, Chairman of Telangana State Generation and Transmission corporations D. Prabhakar Rao said the entities were prepared to meet a demand of 11,000 MW in March. He based his argument on generation of 7,000 MW by State-owned thermal power stations and 2,000 MW coming from Central stations. The balance of demand was met by solar power to the tune of 2,500 MW in day time, thereby compensating purchases.
“The purchases from grid were made factoring in demand and supply position. They were worth just Rs. 76 crore in January,” Mr. Rao said.
High demand
He attributed the peaking of power demand to domestic consumption going up in the last few days with air-conditioners coming into use in a big way. The agricultural demand was also high.
Manifest in Mr. Rao’s words, the consumption by domestic sector in urban areas has steadily grown. For instance, the consumption in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation on Wednesday was 2,427 MW against 2,218 MW on this day last year. The consumption was 2,330 MW on Tuesday.
The agricultural consumption was no less as farmers were dependent on 24 lakh borewells that irrigated water intensive paddy crop in villages not serviced by projects.
Cropping pattern
However, Principal Agriculture Secretary C. Parthasarathi said not even 50% of groundwater was consumed by paddy as maize, groundnut, turmeric, chilli, sugarcane and vegetable crops together had almost equal share.
There was no likelihood of respite to power demand by agriculture because the transplantation of paddy continued till January-end due to not so good monsoon last year and depletion of groundwater table.
This was evident from a demand of 10,818 MW, the highest in Telangana so far, in October last. Therefore, the harvest of paddy was likely till May, according to Mr. Parthasarathi. He expected irrigation by projects in only 5 lakh acres while the targeted area was 10 lakh acres.
Demand falls
The maximum demand of 10,122 MW on Wednesday dropped to 9,096 MW by 7 p.m. Apart from GHMC, the principal districts that consumed heavily were Mahabubnagar (1,268 MW), Nalgonda (1,286 MW) and Medak (1,169 MW). Mahbubnagar recorded day temperature of 38 degrees celsius.
Peaking demand
Consumption in domestic sector on rise
High demand from agricultural sector, especially from areas not provided irrigation water from projects
No likelihood of respite from agricultural sector due to delay in farming operations.

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