Delhi Breaks 119 Year Temperature Record and Winter Power Demand

As Delhi grapples with one of its coldest winters in 119 years the capital also touched a record high of 5298 MW in peak power demand, highest till date

As Delhi grapples with one of its coldest winters in over 119 years the Tata Power Delhi Distribution (Tata Power-DDL) has announced that it has successfully met the record peak power demand of 1541 MW without any network constraint and power outage as the capital also touched a record high of 5298 MW, highest till date.

The previous highest demand of Delhi was 4800 MW and 1433 in the TATA Power-DDL area in January 2019.

The company is expecting the peak demand to breach 1600 MW mark this season and has made long-term power tie-ups for meeting the same and has ensured reliability of its equipment at these low temperatures and foggy conditions. A total of 1700 MW of power is available from long–term sources with the company which would help in meeting the peak demand effectively.

“At Tata Power-DDL we are fully committed to ensuring warm and safe winters to our consumers, we have made surplus power arrangements over and above the expected peak demand to cater to contingencies. Besides this, we are using a mix of technologies such as hotline washing using water jets and also techniques such as AI & Machine Learning for better load forecasting to provide reliable power supply,” said Ganesh Srinivasan, CEO, Tata Power-DDL.

The firm announced that its power-supply arrangements during the winter-months include long–term agreements from power-plants like Maithon Power, NTPC Stations, and Delhi based gas-fueled generating stations. Additionally, the company will also be receiving around 20 MW from Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and 80 MW from SunEdison GreenKo.

Apart from these, Tata Power-DDL is also using advanced techniques and avenues like ‘Banking’, ‘Reserve Shutdown’, ‘Power Exchange’ and ensuring sufficient ‘Spinning Reserves’ to dispose of surplus power. In case of any unforeseeable contingency, the company will buy short-term power from the exchange which is available at economical rates during winter months. Adding to these efforts are the advanced load-forecasting statistical and modelling techniques which are helping us forecast the power demand.