The dog days of summer (kathri) have begun and it is not just the temperature that is rising. The city’s power demand has shot up by an average of 20% compared to last year. And, most of this consumption is in South Chennai — by domestic, industrial and commercial consumers. On Wednesday, the temperature touched 40 degrees Celsius in the city
For the past few days, industry associations have been complaining about the three-hour load shedding in the districts when it was just one hour in the city. Now, with demand increasing every day, it seems the city may have to bear outages for longer periods.
On May 1 and 2, 2010, the city’s power demand was 1,687 mega watts (MW) and 1,782 MW, respectively. On the same days this year, the demand was 2,041 MW and 2,279 MW. “On these two days, the percentage of increase compared to 2010 was 20.98% and 27.89 %,” said Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) chairman C P Singh.
The demand began fluctuating during April-end and in the last week it was above 2,100 MW. “From May it started increasing steadily. The cooling effect of the rain has worn off and the demand will increase steadily now as more people start using air-conditioners. This could lead to overloading and, invariably, power cuts,” said a senior TNEB official.
Even in the city, there is a demand disparity. While North Chennai consumes 15 million units a day, it is 25 million units in South Chennai. These two region mark a 17 % and 29 % growth respectively and this varies from day to day
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