India's power consumption grows nearly 47% in first week of April

Power consumption in the country grew nearly 47 per cent in the first week of April to 28.34 billion units (BU) over the corresponding period a year ago, showing robust recovery in industrial and commercial demand of electricity, according to power ministry data.

Power consumption in the first week of April last year (from April 1 to 7, 2020) was was recorded at 19.33 BU.

On the other hand, the peak power demand met, which is the highest supply in a day, during first week this month remained well above the highest record of 132.20 GW in the same period in April 2020.

During the first week this month, peak power demand touched the highest level of 181.05 GW on April 7, 2021, and recorded a growth of 27 per cent over 132.20 GW recorded in the entire month of April last year.

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Power consumption in April last year had dropped to 84.55 BU from 110.11 BU in same month in 2019. This happened mainly because of fewer economic activities following imposition of lockdown by the government in the last week of March 2020 to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Similarly, peak power demand met also slumped to 132.20 GW in April last year from 176.81GW in the same month in 2019, showing the impact of lockdown on economic activities.

Experts are of the view that high growth in power consumption as well as demand in first week this month is mainly because of base erosion last year due to lockdown, but it clearly indicates recovery in commercial and industrial demand.

However, they cautioned that local lockdowns to curb the surge of Covid-19 cases may impact power consumption adversely with slump in commercial and industrial demand of electricity in coming days.

After a gap of six months, power consumption had recorded a 4.6 per cent year-on-year growth in September and 11.6 per cent in October.

In November 2020, the power consumption growth slowed to 3.12 per cent, mainly due to the early onset of winters.

In December, power consumption grew by 4.5 per cent while it was 4.4 per cent in January 2021.

Power consumption in February this year recorded higher at 104.11 BU compared to 103.81 BU last year despite the fact that 2020 was a leap year.

In March this year, the power consumption grew nearly 23 per cent to 121.51 BU compared to 98.95 BU in same month of 2020.

During the entire fiscal of 2020-21, power consumption dipped by one per cent to 1,271.54 BU from 1,284.44 BU in 2019-20.