Punjab meets highest demand for electricity during summer season

Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], August 2 : Punjab Power minister Harbhajan Singh on Tuesday said that the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has been successful in providing uninterrupted power supply to paddy farmers of the state, in accordance with the promise made by chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann.
Singh said electricity has been provided to all Agricultural Pumpsets in the state and 8 hours of power supply is ensured daily to the tubewell connections.
A notification was issued by the state government on May 23 which directed to provide 8 hours of power supply daily from June 10 to all AP tubewell connections across the State, he said.
He said that during the summer season from March to July, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) on June 29 set a record by meeting the peak demand of 14,207 MW of electricity which is 5.78 percent higher than the peak demand of 13,431 MW electricity last year on July 01, 2021.
The Power Minister further said that the total electricity consumption in the State from March to July is 31,505 million units, which is 14.23 percent higher than last year's consumption of 27,580 million units in the corresponding period.
He said that PSPCL has broken the previous year's record of supplying 13,431 MW of electricity by successfully meeting the highest demand of 14,207 MW of electricity during the current year.
Despite the increasing demand for power due to the rise in temperature during this summer season, PSPCL has successfully provided electricity supply to agricultural consumers for 8 hours daily and to all other categories of consumers 24 hours without power cuts.
The Power Minister said that due to its concerted efforts, the State Government has secured additional provision of about 17 lakh metric tonnes of coal over and above the PSPCL linkage coal.
The State Government also was able to secure an allocation of 1300 MW power from the Central Pool which has helped PSPCL in successfully meeting the 24x7 demand for electricity during the paddy season without cutting power to any category of consumers.
He said that during the current year PSPCL has made a banking arrangement of 3047 MW of electricity which is 12.85 percent more than 2700 MW last year.
The Punjab Power Minister informed that in view of the continuous high demand, PSPCL developed the strategy to adopt various demand side management (DSM) measures for reactive power management to optimize resources.
He said that in order to compensate for the reactive power requirement of the system, the condenser mode of unit no. 3 of Ranjit Sagar Dam plant, which was not being used for many years, has now been made operational to compensate for the 60 Mega Volt Amps Reactive (MVAR) requirement of reactive power in the system.
Besides this, the Mega Volt Amps Reactive MVAR capacity of the system has also been increased through a special drive by the addition of 341.61 Mega Volt Amps Reactive MVAR capacity with 251 units of capacitor banks at the grid substations and the addition of shunt capacitors of required capacity at 11 KV feeders to improve the voltage profile of the system, he added.