The power demand in the city today broke all records, touching an all-time high of 5,653 mega watt, triggering long power cuts in several areas due to tripping of distribution network following increased load.
The previous highest power requirement in the city was recorded on July 5 last year when the demand touched 5,642 MW.
"The maximum power demand in the city touched 5,653 MW at 3:38 PM which is a new record of power consumption in Delhi," a power department official said.
Areas across the city faced power cuts ranging from one to five hours due to tripping of distribution network because of increased load, officials said.
The demand, however, fell sharply to 2,222 MW following the showers in the evening. "This is also a sort of record as never the demand fell so sharply," said the official.
Reports of long power cuts from across East, West and South Delhi were received following the rains. Officials from distribution companies said the outages took place because of uprooting of trees or tree branches snapping power lines.
"There was no power in my area for three hours," said a resident in Bhogal area of South Delhi.
The power demand in the city has been increasing at a rate of around eight per cent in the last few years and as per projection of the government, it will reach 6,000 MW this summer.
According to official figure, the power demand in 1905 was just 2 MW which had increased to 27 mega watt in 1947. The peak demand had touched 1,536 MW in 1992 while in 1997 it increased to 2,303 MW and further to 2,879 MW in 2001.
In 2002, the power demand had gone up to 3,097 MW while in 2007, it touched 4,030 MW. While the demand went up to 4,408 MW in 2009, it touched 4,720 MW in 2010. In 2011, the demand had gone up to 5,028 mega watt.
