Soaring temperature pushes Chennai's power demand to 3,991 MW

CHENNAI: With the city reeling under heat wave with temperature recorded over 40 degree Celsius, Chennai's peak power demand touched an all time high of 3,991 MW on Monday resulting in power cuts in several areas causing hardship to the people.

The previous highest peak demand of 3,778 MW was recorded on April 20. All-time high energy consumption of 84.51 million units registered on May 15 bettering previous high of 84.23 MU on April 21.

Residents of Periyar Nagar staged a protest at the Tangedco section office due to power cuts on Monday night. A Tangedco official said that due to increase in the ambient temperature, there was increased and sustained usage of the air conditioners at homes leading to overloading of transformers resulting in tripping of fuse.

"Power cuts lasted only for 30 minutes. All the officials and workers were on the field last night as the power demand went up resulting in fuse faults," the official said.

He noted that normally people switch on the AC for 30 minutes to one hour for the room to get cooled. Due to prevailing weather conditions, people used the ACs for a long time resulting in the overloading, the official added.

Even social media was flooded with the complaints of power cuts in several localities, including Kolathur, Villivakkam, Ambattur, Ram Nagar North at Madipakkam, Kandasamy Nagar at Palavakkam, Nanganallur and Puzhuthivakkam.

Several residents complained about the inability to reach the minnagam call centre as the call got dropped after being waiting in the queue for a long time.

With the city's temperature going up from 40.8 degrees Celsius on Monday to 41.8 degrees Celsius to Tuesday, Chennai's power demand is also expected to cross the 4,000 MW mark. A senior Tangedco official attributed the sudden surge in the power demand from about 3550 MW to 3991 MW last night after the usual peak hour of 6 pm to 10 pm led to power cuts in some places. "We are expecting the power demand to touch 4200 MW to 4300 MW. So we have taken measures to prevent such power cuts," the official said.

He said after last night's power outages, they have identified 50 locations that witnessed overloading and fuse were changed in the pillar boxes. "We also rerouted the feeder lines to ensure even load distribution," the official said, adding that they erected 45 new distribution transformers on Tuesday and another 35 transformers on Wednesday.

Chennai power demand:

Date; Power demand (MW) ; temperature (degree Celsius)

May 15: 3991 MW; 40.8

May 14: 3590 MW; 40.7

May 13: 3622 MW; 38