Power demand rises in Punjab, Board imposes cuts on industrial, domestic sectors
Punjab Newsline Network
Saturday, 20 March 2010
By Gagandeep Ahuja
PATIALA: Punjab state Electricity Board has put more restrictions on its consumers is state as power demand has suddenly risen to 1210 lakh units on March 18.

An official spokesman Friday said that the increase in demand has come from Agriculture Tubewell consumers. The Board has decided to take some regulatory measure to meet the gap of demand and supply and to give minimum 8 Hrs. supply to Agriculture Tubewell consumers on alternative day till March 31.

Additional 1.5 weekly off days has been imposed on General Industrial Consumers fed from Category –II feeders and additional 2 weekly off days on Arc, Induction Furnace and Rolling Mills consumers fed from category-III feeders as earlier it was only one day.

The peak load restrictions on Continuous Process Industry fed from Category –IV feeders has raised additional 9 hours, earlier it was only 3 hours.

An emergency meeting of the Board was held in Patiala today to deal with sudden increase in a gap in demand and supply of electricity in Punjab, Spokesman added.

The demand of 1210 lakh units has been recorded on March 18 whereas it had been 1065 lakh units on the same day last year. This has resulted into a gap in demand and supply of 218 Lakh Units compared to 71 Lakh Units last year.

Due to lower water level in reservoir of Bhakra (from 1573.37 feet in 2009 to 1528.18 feet this year) and Pong Dam (from 1327.62 feet in 2009 to 1297.81 feet this year) the Punjab's Share from these projects has fallen. Share from Bhakra has decreased from 62.08 lakh units to 51.56 Lakh units & from Pong 14.47 Lakh units to 2.19 Lakh units per day. Further the generation from Mukerian Hydel Project has decreased from 48.33 lakh units to 8.05 Lakh units per day due to lesser release of water. However Generation from own Thermal Plants has increased to 492.85 lakh units as compared to 469 lakh units last year.

Frequency of Northern Grid which includes Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, J&K, UP, Rajasthan and Delhi has decreased to a critical level (below 49 Hz) most of the time which forces regulatory measures on part of PSEB for the security of Northern Grid due to which un scheduled cuts are unavoidable.

Board has appealed to its consumers to use power judiciously and not to use Air Conditions till 31 March. No night cuts on Domestic Consumers have been planned in the above taken regulatory measures as six hours power cut already enforced in day time.