Sluggish economy results in muted power demand in August

Power demand in India declined by 1 per cent on a yearly basis due to weakness in the economy.

According to a report from Kotak Institutional Equities, the decline in energy demand was across all regions in August 2019, except Northern India. Power demand in north India grew 1 per cent on a year-on-year basis. Further, renewable power generation was 15.6 BU in July, a decline of 1 per cent yearly.

Western India saw which constitutes 26 per cent of the overall demand, saw the highest decline of 3 per cent on a year-on-year basis, the report said. This also showed up in the PLFs, or Plant Load Factor (which is a measure of how much a plant is being used) for coal-based capacities declined sharply to 51 per cent in August 2019 along with gas-based capabilities operating at a lower utilisation of 21 per cent.