Haryana’s electricity demand touches 9,000 MW, Gurugram sees 6 hrs of power cuts

The maximum electricity demand across Haryana nearly touched 9,000 megawatts (MW) on Wednesday, while the supply fell short by around 1,500MW, officials of the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited said on Thursday.

According to officials, Haryana’s average demand is around 7,000MW this time of year.

The shortage resulted in four to six hours of cumulative power outage in all of Gurugram till Thursday evening, said officials of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), adding the power outages lasted from 15 minutes to almost an hour during different times in the day.

No power official, however, was willing to be quoted on record.

According to authorities, this is the longest number of cumulative hours Gurugram has witnessed outages since the power crisis arose this year. Officials said urban areas of Gurugram had to face an unscheduled power outage from 9.05am to 10.05am on Thursday due to inadequate power supply because all the six 66kv substations in the City division were required to be shut as a precautionary measure due to the continuous surge in demand.

Manoj Yadav, superintending engineer of circle-I (Gurugram) could not be reached for comment despite several requests.

PK Chauhan, the superintending engineer for circle-II, under whose jurisdiction the suburban and Sohna divisions are, said that all areas under his jurisdiction are also facing the same scenario due to the statewide power crisis.

Meanwhile, residents of blocks J, K and N of New Palam Vihar in Gurugram had a tougher time as there was a power outage in these areas from 8.30am on Thursday due to a fault in an underground power supply cable. Officials said in the evening that the issue was nearly rectified and the power supply would be restored soon.

The districts under the jurisdiction of DHBVN demanded a combined load of 4,300MW to 4,500MW on an average during non-peak time on Thursday, with Gurugram demanding the maximum load share of 1,200MW to 1,300MW. Meanwhile, the districts under the jurisdiction of Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited (UHBVN) demanded around 2,200MW of power on Thursday.

On Tuesday too, Haryana witnessed a demand of around 8,500MW, and authorities managed to supply 7,300MW, officials said adding the shortage was met by regulating power cuts in areas under the jurisdiction of DHBVN and UHBVN.