India power grid, 2 November: shortage falls to 0.77 MU as October crunch ends

Shortages have stayed small since mid-October

The energy shortage is the electricity demand that India's grid could not supply. It was 0.77 million units (MU, millions of kilowatt-hours) on 2 November. It has stayed under 3 MU every day since 17 October. Before that, it peaked at 40.5 MU on 6 October and ran at 15–31 MU on most days through 14 October. At the evening peak, when there is no solar power, the shortfall was 269 megawatts (MW).

Demand is well below its early-October level

Energy met, the total electricity supplied to users, was 4,775 MU. That was up from 4,614 MU on Sunday 1 November. The highest demand met during the day was 226,478 MW. Between about 5 and 9 October, daily energy met was about 5,450–5,530 MU, and peaks were roughly 258–261 gigawatts (GW).

Coal plants are burning less fuel

• Coal generation was 3,772 MU, against roughly 4,000–4,170 MU in the first half of October. This takes pressure off thin coal stocks at power plants.
• Hydro generation was 322 MU, down from about 345–367 MU a fortnight earlier.
• Wind, solar and other renewables produced 778 MU, down from a recent high of 938 MU on 28 October. Solar alone produced 628 MU.
• Total gross generation was 5,203 MU.

More plants are offline, and exports to Bangladesh fell

Plants out of service totalled about 48.6 GW, up from 35–40 GW in mid-to-late October. This probably reflects plants being taken offline for maintenance as demand eases. The Godda plant in Jharkhand, which sells its power to Bangladesh, exported 19 MU. In mid-October it exported about 30 MU. The Frequency Variation Index, which measures grid stability, was 0.10. That is within its normal range.