Dry Spell leads to high power consumption in Telangana

Officials say as there were no rains, but for some scattered showers, farmers were left with no choice but to use groundwater, leading to abnormal increase in power consumption

Hyderabad: With the dry spell in the State likely to stretch till next week, power consumption, especially in the agriculture sector, has seen a rise in the last two weeks. The total electricity consumption in the State crossed 24 crore units on July 13, whereas last year on that same day it was 12.20 crore units.

Officials say as there were no rains, but for some scattered showers, farmers were left with no choice but to use groundwater, leading to abnormal increase in power consumption, especially in North and Central districts.

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Power consumption comes down usually in the monsoon season, especially in the agriculture sector, but this time the long dry spell led to gradual and steady increase in consumption almost upto the pre-monsoon level. Officials disclosed that power had to be bought from from the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) paying a maximum of Rs 10 per unit. Sources say that the Discoms had spent over Rs. 200 crore in July for power purchase in open access and if the dry spell continued the spending would be to the tune of Rs. 500 crore.

Officials point out that the surge in power consumption in farm sector could be attributed to automatic motor starters being used by farmers. The problem is worse confounded with nearly 80 per cent of agri pumpsets being equipped with automatic starters. This is causing excess utilisation of power and also speedy depletion of groundwater, opined a senior official. There are over 27.50 lakh farm borewells in the state.

Alarmed power officials have also urged the farmers to stop using automatic starters, as they were causing damage to transformers. The State government was purchasing power at a higher rate and if the farmers run the motors continuously the power consumption would increase and there would be heavy financial burden on the government, officials explained.

They claim that due to continuous running of agricultural borewells over 6,000 transformers were burnt across the State last month and the government had to spend a huge amount to replace them.

More details:

Power Demand on a Single Day: 24 crore units
Last year Power Demand Same Day: 12.20 crore
Amount Spent on power purchase: Rs. 200 crore
No. of borewell connections: 27.50 lakh