As India prepares for summer season, Centre announces sale of power surplus on Energy Exchange, other steps to prevent power cuts

The Centre said on Tuesday that it is taking all necessary steps to ensure that demand for electricity is met in the upcoming summer season. Union Minister RK Singh reviewed the power capacity status of all thermal power plants experiencing partial outages in order to ensure maximum availability of thermal capacity, the latest in a series of meetings held with the concerned stakeholders earlier to stress the importance of adequate advance planning to ensure sufficient energy supply across states during the upcoming season, according to an official release.

The meetings also emphasised the need to ensure zero load shedding during the summer season. 

Here are some of the measures in place: 

• Partial outages of thermal power plants being brought down
• Review of non-operational thermal power capacity
• Planned maintenance of power plants to be shifted to the monsoon season
• New capacity additions to be speeded up
• Capacity additions in coal, hydro, nuclear, solar, wind sectors to be monitored to expedite their commissioning 
• Surplus power with captive generating stations to be utilised
• Surplus power to be offered for sale in Energy Exchange
• Uniform technical minimum loading of 55 per cent of unit capacity for coal-based thermal power plants
• Operationalisation of gas-based capacity to be reviewed 

Here are some key expectations from the upcoming summer season: 

The Indian Metrological Department (IMD) has projected higher-than-normal maximum and minimum temperatures across the country, except over some isolated areas of Northwest, Northeast, Central and Peninsular India.

The electricity demand would also hence be higher than in previous years, which is reflected also in the rising trend of peak demand in recent months, during both solar hours and non-solar hours.

The peak energy demand grew 12.7 per cent from 2,15,888 MW in 2022-23 to 2,43,271 MW in 2023-24, while the peak demand met grew 13.9 per cent from 2,10,725 MW in 2022-23 to 2,39,931 MW in 2023-24.

The total electricity generated grew 7.1 per cent from 1,621 billion units in 2022-23 to 1,736 billion units in 2023-24.