Power consumption grows nearly 10% to 115.39 billion units in June

Power consumption had slumped June 2020, mainly due to fewer economic activities amid COVID-induced restrictions.

Power consumption in the country grew by nearly 10 per cent in June to 115.39 billion units (BU) compared to a year ago, but is still lower than the pre-COVID level, according to power ministry data.

Power consumption had slumped to 105.08 BU in June 2020, mainly due to fewer economic activities amid COVID-induced restrictions.

Notwithstanding the improvement, the power consumption in June 2021 is still lower than June 2019 (pre-COVID level), when it was at 117.98 BU.

On a month-on-month basis power consumption grew by 4.7 per cent in June compared to 110.17 BU in May this year.

Experts are of the view that the recovery in power demand and consumption in June this year remained not as slow as was expected in view of the forecast of early onset of Monsoon in the second half of the month.

They said, if the Monsoon had covered the entire country earlier than the normal schedule as per weather forecasts, the recovery in power consumption and demand would have been even slower.

They have exuded confidence that the power consumption as well as demand will show fast recovery and hopefully achieve pre-COVID levels from July onwards.

The commercial and industrial power demand and consumption also got affected April onwards this year due lockdown restrictions imposed by states to contain the deadly virus amid a raging second wave.

The experts are of the view that since the number of daily COVID-19 positive cases have declined across the country and states have eased the lockdown restrictions, the commercial and industrial demand of power is bound to see an uptick July onwards.

Peak power demand met or the highest supply in a day witnessed a growth of over 16 per cent in June at 191.51 GW (recorded on June 30) compared to 164.98 GW in June 2020. The peak power demand was 182.45 GW in the same month in 2019.

Former Union Power Secretary S N Sahai on Wednesday tweeted : "Today (June 30) All India peak demand touched an all time high of 191,243 MW at 12:46 PM against earlier high of 189,644 MW on 31st Jan 2021. Yesterday, All India Energy met (peak power demand met) also reached all time high of 4303 Million Units (on 29th June 2021) surpassing previous high of 4161 MU on 8th April 2021." According to the latest data, the power consumption was recorded at 4,384 million units (MU) on June 30, 2021, which is an all-time high daily electricity consumption in the country.

Last year, the government had imposed a lockdown on March 25, to contain the spread of coronavirus. The lockdown was eased in a phased manner, but had hit the economic and commercial activities and resulted in lower commercial and industrial demand for electricity in the country.

Power consumption in April 2021, saw year-on-year growth of nearly 38.5 per cent. The second wave of COVID-19 started in the middle of April this year and affected the recovery in commercial and industrial power demand as states started imposing restrictions in the latter part of the month.

Power consumption in the country witnessed a 7.9 per cent year-on-year growth in May at 110.17 billion units (BU) despite a low base of 102.08 BU in the same month of 2020.

In May this year, peak power demand met or the highest supply in a day touched the highest level of 168.78 GW and recorded a growth of over 1.5 per cent over 166.22 GW (peak met) recorded in the same month in 2020.

Power consumption in February this year (leap year) was recorded at 103.25 BU compared to 103.81 BU a year ago.

In March this year, power consumption grew nearly 22 per cent to 120.63 BU, compared to 98.95 BU in the same month of 2020.

After a gap of six months, power consumption had recorded a 4.6 per cent year-on-year growth in September 2020, and 11.6 per cent in October 2020.

In November 2020, the power consumption growth slowed to 3.12 per cent, mainly due to the early onset of winters.

In December 2020, it grew by 4.5 per cent, while this was 4.4 per cent higher in January 2021.