As the country placed a strict lockdown starting in March, some of its cities saw a 20-40 per cent decline in energy consumption in April and May. For several cities now unlocking, the pattern may be reversed, but gradually.
According to data from three private distribution companies in Mumbai , Delhi and Ahmedabad, power consumption has declined significantly compared to last year, but new trends, such as higher digital payments and residential demand, have also emerged.
Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad are some of the cities in which private power distributors operate. Data sources from these distributors show that the dip in consumption for Mumbai was 22 per cent in April compared to last year, while the decrease for May this year was 17 per cent.
“The electricity consumed in licence areas of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surat and Dahej special economic zone (SEZ) reduced by 35 per cent in May 2020 compared to May 2019,” said a spokesperson for Torrent, which is a power distributor in these circles.
For the country’s national capital, peak demand for power dropped by 44 per cent in April and 15 per cent in May. As Delhi is one of the cities witnessing an early reversal of the lockdown, executives report that the demand trend is already changing. ”After the end of the lockdown version-3 on May 17 and the easing of restrictions, Delhi’s peak power has started increasing and the gap narrowed. Since easing of restrictions on May 18, 2020, Delhi’s peak power demand has increased by over 40 per cent,” a BSES Delhi spokesperson said. Part of the reason for increase in consumption, however, is also the intense heat wave conditions.
While demand returns for some cities, there is a word of caution. “The overall demand is expected to be muted compared to earlier pre-Covid projections,” said the BSES spokesperson.
Reliance Infrastructure-owned BSES has two distribution licenses in Delhi for the eastern and southern parts of the city. Eighty-five per cent of its links are domestic, 13 per cent commercial. Just 1% is agricultural, and another 1% is manufacturing.
The same trend can be seen for Adani Electricity Mumbai, which has 82% residential, 17% commercial and 1% in other categories. This business was purchased by the Adani Group from BSES in 2018. However, a break up for Torrent Power was not readily available.
As distribution companies deal with changes in demand, they also face challenges in terms of physical meter readings. “Estimated e-bills are being sent to customers based on average consumption of the last three months. Once actual meter reading is available, all amounts will be adjusted based on the actual utilisation,” said a spokesperson for Adani Electricity Mumbai (AEML).
Torrent has billed its high-volume customers on the basis of smart meters allowed by GPRS and shared data on actual use.
For residential and non-residential consumers, billing was either based on the reading provided by consumers or on the previous three-month average. The Torrent spokesperson added that there is a marked increase in residential consumption.
“It has been observed that generally the provisional bills were lower than normal as they were based on the consumption recorded during the winter / cooler months (previous 3 bill cycles). Further, customers were homebound during the lockdown period and hence consumed more electricity at their residential connections during the lockdown,” the spokesperson said.
Even for BSES, there was a slight increase in residential consumption. “People were confined to their homes and were using appliances. Hence, there was no impact of Delhi’s domestic load, which is around 75 per cent of Delhi’s total power load,” said the spokesperson for BSES Delhi.
The demand for electricity in Punjab exceeded last year, with a peak in June at 12.3 Gw compared to 11.5 Gw last year. In Haryana, demand was 8.5Gw compared to 9.4Gw last year. The demand for power is rising in both states by 3-4Gw from May to June due to the demand for subsidized agricultural power ahead of the sowing season, according to the IDFC India Power Pulse report.
Overall electricity production decreased by 16% in May 2020 and by 23% in April 2020 mainly due to a lockdown. The coal-fired generation plant load factor in India was 48% in May 2020, a slight increase over 42% in the previous month, according to the survey. Although renewables increased by 8 per cent and 3 per cent in April and May 2020, coal-fired power decreased by 33% and 24 per cent , respectively. The growth of the FY20 was 0.9%-the lowest seen in the last 20 years. While the net generation struggled to report growth as a result of the prolonged monsoon and weather patterns in the last fiscal year, the lockdown precipitated the slowdown, the report said.
According to the report, the seasonal variation in electricity demand in Punjab is fascinating with a sharp swing, especially in June and July, ahead of the sowing season. “However, this season the dip was lower (lockdown) and rise was higher (agri demand and cooling demand) than last year. We believe that this is primarily due to strong demand from the agricultural pump.”
