India's power shortage nearly vanishes by late October as demand falls

Lower demand did most of the work

The energy shortage is the electricity that consumers wanted but the grid could not supply. Grid India's daily data put it at 31.3 million units (MU) on 14 October, where one unit is a kilowatt-hour. Since then, demand has dropped:

• All-India energy met, meaning the electricity actually supplied, was 4,772 MU on 29 October. That is down about 14% from 5,533 MU on 5 October.
• Maximum demand met was 227.6 gigawatts (GW), compared with roughly 260.7 GW on 5 and 8 October.
• The Northern Region fell to 1,249 MU, from 1,480 MU on 14 October.
• The shortage at peak demand outside solar hours was zero. It had been 5,812 megawatts (MW) on 3 October and 4,680 MW on 14 October.

Coal plants and costly peaking plants are running less

Coal generation dropped to 3,662 MU, down from a mid-October high of 4,168 MU. This gives coal stocks some room to rebuild. Generation from gas, naphtha and diesel fell to 42.7 MU, from 143.5 MU on 15 October. These expensive plants run mainly to cover demand peaks, and they are no longer running hard.

Hydro output and plant outages are moving the wrong way

Hydro generation kept falling, to 316 MU from 485 MU on 15 October. Total generation outages, meaning plant capacity that is offline, rose to 47,231 MW on 29 October and 48,644 MW on 28 October. They were about 35,400 MW on 22 October. The rise could reflect planned maintenance timed for lower demand, or fuel problems. The data cannot tell which.

Wind power has recovered from its early-October weakness

Generation from renewables (wind, solar, biomass and others) recovered to 896–938 MU over 27–29 October. It was about 780 MU in the week before. Wind and other non-solar renewables were about 270–340 MU, compared with about 150 MU on 23 October. Weak wind had helped cause the shortage early in the month, and that weakness has now reversed.