Lesser power demand in winter to ease pressure for gencos

Come winter and the demand for electricity will come down, easing the situation for various generation utilities battling fuel shortage due to coal supply problems, says a senior IEX official.
"It will take one or two months for the situation to improve, there will be lower demand due to decrease in temperature, the improvement will be mainly due to lesser demand," Rajesh Kumar Mediratta, Director (Business Development) India Energy Exchange (IEX) told PTI on the sidelines of an Assocham event.
When asked whether the problem of coal shortage at power stations impacted the sale of electricity at the exchange, Mediratta said, "Sale bids have come down and purchase bids have gone up. But not fuel shortage but some other factors like monsoon, lower hydro generation are also responsible.

He added that even wind energy generation mainly in southern and western India also comes down during this time of the year.
"Hydro generation comes down now as the monsoon is over, wind generation in the south and west has also come down, this is resulting into lower surplus available and more demand," he said.
Normally, companies save coal during monsoon to be used later as during that period hydel generation is very high but this time due to scanty monsoon they (power companies) could not save enough coal, Mediratta added.

India recorded a peak power deficit -- shortage in electricity supply when demand is maximum -- of 3.5 per cent in September, according to a latest official data.

Earlier this month, IEX traded 125 million units (MUs) of power due to rising demand for power. This is the highest since September 8, 2013 when the exchange traded 117 MUs.
The price of electricity this month rose to Rs 5.29 per unit.