Regionwise Peak Demand
Peak Demand is the highest load requirement on the electric system. Peak demand is typically characterized as annual, daily, hourly or seasonal maximum demand, and has the unit of power, that is watts, and for easier referencing, in larger units, namely Kilo-watt (kW), Mega-watt (MW) or Giga-watt (GW)
Diversity Factor: The load is time dependent and daily load diversity is caused by a marked and consistent difference between the daily load cycles in two or more adjoining load areas, which results in peaks at different times during the day e.g., one region may have a morning peak while the other has an evening peak
The diversity factor in power system is an important indicator of variation of maximum load across different parts of the country in a given time period. Further, interconnection of grids helps in harnessing this diversity and improving the load factor of the country
Table below captures annual trend in region-wise Peak Demand
For 2023-24, Peak Demand of Northern Region was 80,980 MW, for West it was 77,275 MW, for South it was 65,820 MW, for East it was 30,256 MW while that of Northeast was 3,678 MW. If we total these five, we get arithmetic total of 258,009 MW, however, the all-India peak demand was 243,271 MW, which highlights the diversity factor in the inter-regional system in India
| Year | Northern Region MW | Western Region MW | Southern Region MW | Eastern Region MW | North-Eastern Region MW | ALL INDIA PEAK MW | Arithmatic Total Regions before diversity MW |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | 80980.0 | 77275.0 | 65820.0 | 30256.0 | 3678.0 | 243271.0 | 258009.0 |
| 2022-23 | 77337.0 | 71677.0 | 61418.0 | 28275.0 | 3603.0 | 215888.0 | 242310.0 |
| 2021-22 | 73305.0 | 64608.0 | 60350.0 | 26019.0 | 3427.0 | 203014.0 | 227709.0 |
| 2020-21 | 68288.0 | 61778.0 | 58395.0 | 24016.0 | 3294.0 | 190198.0 | 215771.0 |
| 2019-20 | 66559.0 | 59416.0 | 53579.0 | 23421.0 | 2989.0 | 183804.0 | 205964.0 |
| 2018-19 | 63166.0 | 56675.0 | 49623.0 | 23141.0 | 2967.0 | 177022.0 | 195572.0 |
| 2017-18 | 60749.0 | 50477.0 | 47385.0 | 20794.0 | 2629.0 | 164066.0 | 182034.0 |
| 2016-17 | 53372.0 | 48531.0 | 42232.0 | 18908.0 | 2487.0 | 159542.0 | 165530.0 |
| 2015-16 | 54474.0 | 48640.0 | 40030.0 | 18169.0 | 2573.0 | 153366.0 | 163886.0 |
| 2014-15 | 51977.0 | 44166.0 | 39094.0 | 17040.0 | 2528.0 | 148166.0 | 154805.0 |
| 2013-14 | 45934.0 | 41335.0 | 39015.0 | 15888.0 | 2164.0 | 135918.0 | 144336.0 |
At the time of independence, power systems in the country were essentially isolated systems developed in and around urban and industrial areas
During the third Five Year Plan, concept of Regional planning in Power Sector was introduced and country was demarcated into five Power Regions, Northern, Western, Southern, Eastern and North-Eastern
In 1964, Regional Electricity Boards were established in each of the regions for facilitating integrated operation of State Systems and encouraging exchange of power among the States
Till the year 1975, development of transmission system was essentially by the State Electricity Boards (SEBs)/ Electricity Departments (EDs) in the States and Union Territories (UTs)
In 1975, to supplement the efforts of the States in increasing generation capacity, Central Sector generation utilities viz. National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) were created. These corporations established large generating stations for the benefit of States in a region
This gave a fillip to the formation of Regional Grid Systems and by the end of 1980s, strong regional networks came into existence
In the year 1989, transmission wings of Central Generating Companies were separated to set up Power Grid Corporation of India (POWERGRID) to give thrust to implementation of transmission system associated with Central generating stations and inter-regional transmission programme based on perspective planning done by Central Electricity Authority (CEA)
The initial set of inter-regional links developed under the Centrally sponsored programme were utilized to facilitate exchange of operational surpluses among various Regions in a limited manner. It was mainly because the Regional Grids operated independently, experiencing different operating frequencies. The power exchanges on these inter-regional links could take place only in radial mode
The North Eastern Region and Eastern Region were the first to be operated in synchronous mode since 1993. Subsequently these two regions were synchronised with the Western Region in March 2003, and at that time the three connected regions were termed as Central Grid
Later in August 2006, the Central Grid was synchronised with the Northern Region, and was termed as “N-E-W” grid
Southern Regional grid got synchronously connected to the “N-E-W” grid in December 2013, having been previously connected asynchronously to Eastern Region, thus leading to formation of one synchronous National Grid
Focus of planning the generation and the transmission system in the country has gradually shifted from the orientation of regional self-sufficiency to the concept of optimum utilization of resources on all-India basis
View the trends graphically