Finally, power demand grows in December after six months of decline

Breaking the six-month spell, electricity generation from conventional power plants, which include thermal, hydel and nuclear, grew 5.4 per cent on a month-on-month (m-o-m) basis in December 2019. Power plants generated a total of 98.8 billion units of electricity as compared to 93.7 billion units generated a month ago. Power demand has been shrinking each month since June last year falling substantially (m-o-m) around 6 per cent and 5.5 per cent in the previous two months. It fell at an average rate of 2.6 per cent in the remaining four months. The respite came from thermal electricity generation which grew 8.3 per cent during the month. Electricity generation from thermal has been growing, m-o-m, albeit lower, since October 2019 by 0.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent in November. Generation from other two conventional power plants, hydel and nuclear is still down, but lower compared to November, it declined 11.4 per cent and 6.3 per cent, respectively.  

Things stand in contrast in 2019 as compared to the preceding year. Electricity generation stood at 98.8 billion units in December 2019 compared to 100.8 billion units generated in December 2018, declining by 2.1 per cent. This was the fourth month of consecutive decline on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis. Thermal electricity generation fell by 4.3 per cent, y-o-y, in December 2019 to 86.12 billion units. Hydro and nuclear power stations, however, reported an increase in generation. Their output rose by 14.2 per cent and 15.7 per cent to 8.9 billion units and 3.6 billion units, respectively, in December 2019.

Conventional electricity generation during the first nine months of the current financial year remained almost flat compared to the corresponding nine months of the previous financial year. It grew almost 4.8 per cent during 9MFY19 compared to 9MFY18. A total of 950.4 billion units of electricity was generated during April-December 2019. The generation of thermal power stations fell by 3.2 per cent y-o-y to 779.6 billion units during the period. Hydro electricity generation rose by 15.9 per cent to 129.5 billion units and nuclear electricity generation rose by 25.4 per cent to 35.7 billion units during April-December 2019.

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