Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh clocked a peak electricity demand of 28,043 mw on Sunday/Monday night, which was the highest-ever in the state’s history, said officials with the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL).
The demand increased as a result of the persistent heat and humidity.
Prior to this, the highest recorded power consumption was 27,622 mw on July 22 and 27,611 mw in June.
Officials claimed that the power corporation was meeting the entire demand by providing electricity to consumers as per the schedule, but the ground reality was a bit different.
Along with power outages brought on by overloaded transformer failure, complaints regarding undeclared load shedding were still being received from all around the state.
UPPCL chairman M. Devraj said, “Power demand has reached 28,043 mw for the first time in the state’s history. We are ensuring a record supply of power to consumers as desired by the chief minister and the energy minister.”
He claimed that the extensive planning and management for procuring power from diverse sources was proving useful in supplying sufficient electricity to consumers as per the schedule.
“We are supplying power to villages for 18 hours on an average 21.30 hours to Nagar panchayats and tehsil headquarters, 20 hours to Bundelkhand and 24 hours to district and divisional headquarters and cities,” he claimed.
Devraj said that instructions had been issued to all the field officials to take all possible steps to avoid power disruptions resulting from transformer failure. “We have told officials to keep trolley transformers in reserve to quickly replace damaged transformers and also necessarily take consumers’ phone calls,” he said.
The chairman of UPPCL also asked customers to pay their bills on time so that the corporation could improve its services.
Even though the daytime load on Monday midday was over 25,000 mw, A.K. Verma, chairman of the UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad, predicted that demand for electricity within the state will continue to rise.
“Months back, we had forecast that power demand in the state would cross 28,000 mw this year and even demanded the UPPCL and the UP Power Transmission Corporation Ltd to upgrade their networks accordingly. But they did not pay heed,” he said.—Inputs from Agencies