Another sign of economic slowdown: India's power need shrinks for 3rd month

India’s electricity demand declined for the third straight month, another indication of an economic slowdown that seems to be deepening.
Electricity demand from distribution utilities declined 13.2 per cent in October from a year earlier, data from the Central Electricity Authority showed. The slump began in August when the power requirement dropped for the first time in more than two years.

Slowing requirement mirrors a widespread slump in demand for consumers goods to cars and houses. Industrialised provinces of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu — both automobile hubs of the country — and Gujarat, a centre of textiles and chemicals manufacturing, have also reported a sharp decline in demand.
“The slowdown in industrial activity is responsible for this sharp contraction,” said Debasish Mishra, a partner at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in Mumbai. “The extended monsoon has also reduced demand for cooling during the summers and irrigation demand from farmers.”
The data comes on the back of Moody’s Investors Service cutting India’s credit rating outlook to negative, citing a slowing economy, credit crunch and rising public debt.

India to become power surplus nation in FY19: Central Electricity Authority

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has pegged energy and peak power surplus at 4.6 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively, this financial year, indicating that India will be a power surplus country in 2018-19.
Last year, the CEA in its load generation balancing report (LGBR) had also projected that India would become a power surplus nation in 2017-18. But the peak power deficit was 2.1 per cent while overall electricity deficit was 0.7 per cent across the country in 2017-18.

In April-June quarter this financial year, peak power deficit was 0.7 per cent while overall electricity deficit stood at 0.6 per cent.
"All India power supply position indicates that the country is likely to have a peak surplus of 2.5 per cent and energy surplus of 4.6 per cent," stated the CEA's LGBR for 2018-19.
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A power sector expert said, "India is a power surplus state because its installed generation capacity is around 344 GW against the peak demand of not more than 170 GW so far. The deficit in supply is primarily because of discoms' reluctance to buy power. Either they don't have funds to buy power or they are afraid of under-recovery of power bills."
The other reason for power deficit is limitation of transmission and distribution networks particularly in remote and hilly areas, the expert opined.
According to the report, surplus energy is anticipated of the order of 1.9 per cent, 14.8 per cent and 22.9 per cent in the western, northern and north-eastern regions, respectively.
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However, it said that eastern and southern regions are likely to face energy shortage of 4.2 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively which can be met from surplus power in other regions.
The peak surplus of 9.3 per cent, 4.9 per cent, and 12.6 per cent is anticipated in western, eastern and north-eastern regions respectively. Northern, and southern regions are likely to face peak deficit of the order of 1.2 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively.
The anticipated availability of 1,398.7 billion units (BU) energy during 2018-19 is based on the generation programme of 1,265 BU in respect of conventional generation sources, it said.
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The generation programme from fossil fuel based generating sources has been arrived at after ensuring full utilisation of the energy that is likely to be available from nuclear & renewable energy sources, it said.
The contribution from coal/ lignite based generating stations to the generation programme is 1,044.29 BU.