An almost 7% growth in India’s electricity demand at a time when economic expansion has cooled to its weakest in six years may appear as a paradox at first glance. Clarity emerges with a closer look. Power requirement growth in the nation’s most industrialized states decelerated in the April-July period, as demand from businesses cooled in line with the broader slowdown in Asia’s third-largest economy. The overall jump in demand, on the other hand, came mostly because of a rise in requirement from states that happened to add a large number of households to the electricity network for the first time.
Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state that added the maximum number of new household power consumers, saw demand rise 9%, while Rajasthan saw demand growth of 11% during the four-month period, data from the government’s Central Electricity Authority show.
