With the arrival of the monsoon in Punjab, power demand witnessed a sharp decline. While the peak power demand had been hovering above 17,000 megawatts (MW) until Wednesday, it fell dramatically to around 8,000 MW on Thursday morning after rain lashed the region overnight.
The sharp fall in demand came as the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) had been struggling to meet peak power requirements, leading to power cuts across the state.
“During the day, the power load is expected to increase, but not significantly,” a PSPCL official said.
The erratic power supply also triggered protests from the farming sector, with farmers complaining that the skewed power supply prevented them from irrigating their fields during the peak paddy transplantation season.
The industrial sector, too, flagged power shortages affecting production.
As of Wednesday, the peak power demand stood at 17,008 MW, while 11,000 MW was being drawn from the central grid, even as state power generation remained under pressure.
The maximum power supply crossed a record 3,862 lakh units on June 29, the highest ever in a single day in PSPCL’s history. The previous highest supply was 3,546 lakh units recorded on July 5 last year, when all thermal units were operational.
While achieving this record was a technical feat for PSPCL, it pushed the infrastructure to its absolute limit. Drawing massive quantities of power from the central grid risks hitting transmission caps.
When the load exceeds regional safety limits, the utility has to resort to localised load shedding (unscheduled power cuts) to prevent a broader grid failure.
June and July mark the crucial period for paddy transplantation in Punjab, with farmers cultivating nearly 35 lakh hectares of land.
This requires massive and continuous irrigation, forcing hundreds of thousands of agricultural tubewells (water pumps) to operate simultaneously.
Adding to the pressure, daytime temperatures hovered around 45 degrees Celsius during the last week of June, leading to a surge in the use of air conditioners and cooling appliances in the commercial sector. This further escalated power demand.
However, the arrival of the monsoon has brought temperatures down sharply to around 25-30 degrees Celsius across Punjab, including districts such as Patiala, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Faridkot, Jalandhar and Bathinda.
The power sector has also received much-needed relief, with weather forecasts indicating that the monsoon will advance further into Punjab in the coming days.
“More rain will naturally bring down temperatures, reduce air-conditioning needs and provide natural irrigation to fields, giving the overworked power grid a chance to cool down,” a PSPCL official said.
