India’s electricity demand rose 21% year-on-year in August 2023, as rising heat and humidity led to increased cooling time, causing electricity consumption in the world’s third-largest energy consumer to rise during the month.
Can you believe it, demand this month (August) is up 21% compared to the same month last year. Demand in July was more than 9 percent higher than July last year,” Power Minister RK Singh told the Bloomberg NEF Summit on Thursday.
From April to June, electricity demand increased by 7.8% year-on-year. Demand in FY2023 is 6.3% higher than FY2022, and FY22 demand is 6.7% higher than FY2021, he added.
“Demand is growing. So from the point of view of making room for renewables, I’m in a happy position. Challenging, yes, because imagining a large country. My maximum demand has reached 234,000 MW and is growing at 7 %, 8% and 9%. You can imagine how nervous the power minister would be,” Singh said.
India’s peak-hour electricity consumption surpassed the Ministry of Power’s forecast of 229 gigawatts (GW) on August 16, August 17 and August 18, with peak demand on the day reaching 233 GW, 234.1 GW and 231.6 GW, respectively. gigawatt.
Insufficient power
However, a sudden surge in electricity demand during the monsoon months, after electricity demand was lower than expected during the peak summer electricity consumption period, also led to a widening power gap.
For example, days when consumption was at a record high also saw peak shortages. The peak demand reached on August 17 was 234.1 GW, with a peak shortfall of 7.26 GW.
Similarly, on August 16, the peak demand reached 233 GW, with a peak gap of 5.92 GW; on August 18, the peak demand reached 231.6 GW, with a gap of 4.21 GW.
In addition, the all-India generation outage capacity on August 16, August 17 and August 18 was 48.94 GW, 52.22 GW and 54.13 GW respectively.
According to ICICI Securities, the peak power deficit has reached 4% in the first 5 months of FY24. For the entire fiscal year 2023, the deficit peaks at 4%.
However, between August 22 and August 23, peak power shortages and outages decreased, also due to some rains in northern and central India.
On August 22, the peak power demand of the day reached 230 GW, the peak gap was 2.74 GW, and 49.62 GW was out of service. Likewise, on August 23, demand was 216.5 gigawatts, while there was a deficit of 525 megawatts (MW) and outages of 49.58 GW.
Increased company capacity
“In our view, the situation has turned negative due to insufficient capacity additions by companies. It is a mild reminder that there is a risk of further power shortages in the country,” said ICICI Securities.
The company’s newly added capacity is still relatively weak, only 25GW. The smooth transition of energy requires the full guarantee of reliable production capacity. The brokerage added that before energy storage becomes cheap and scalable, India needs to ensure that thermal capacity pipelines are added to ensure reliability.
Fixed capacity additions (thermal and nuclear) fell to 1 GW in FY23 (from 23 GW in FY16) as India’s generation capacity additions shifted towards renewables. India has a fixed capacity of 243 GW (including gas capacity) and a peak demand of 234 GW as of June 2023.
