A sudden spurt in demand from all the northern states exacerbated the power crisis in the region while the Dadri power station continued to play hide and seek with the Capital on Sunday.
Most of the northern states resorted to heavy load-shedding with demand registering an unusual increase of around 10 per cent. The spurt in the demand from the agricultural sector, especially from Haryana and UP, and the domestic sector for heating purposes, along with the repeated failure of power equipment have added to the crisis.
The situation in Delhi is expected to remain unchanged for another fortnight with power experts reporting that it would take engineers at least that long to repair or replace the interconnecting transformer (ICT) at Dadri that had caught fire on Friday, disrupting dispatch of power from the power station.
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Dadri has two ICTs of which only one is functional which is allowing only half of the 800 mw being generated at Dadri to be passed on to the grid feeding the Capital. Experts insist that the present loadshedding in Delhi has nothing to do with the infamous HVDC (high voltage direct current) lines.
Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking (Desu) spokesman Jagdish Kapoor, however, claimed that yesterday afternoon onwards the entire demand of 1300 mw in the Capital was being met and there had been no load-shedding since then.
He blamed the northern grid for the short supply of power to the Capital. Desu units, including the Badarpur Thermal Power Station, had been generating nearly 750 mw while the balance was being received from the grid, Kapoor said.
The demand from the agricultural sector in the northern region has peaked with the failure of