A milder 2025 summer and heavy rainfalls in the monsoon season later dragged down the growth in India’s electricity consumption in the fiscal year ended March 2026 to the lowest level in six years.
The electricity supplied by India’s state power retailers between April 2025 and March 2026 increased by less than 1% compared to the previous fiscal year, according to data from the country’s Central Electricity Authority cited by Bloomberg.
The growth was India’s slowest since the 2020-2021 fiscal year when the Covid pandemic and related restrictions led to a rare decline in power use, of 1% from the previous fiscal year.
India also saw in the 2025/2026 fiscal year the first decline in peak power demand for at least 20 years, according to the data.
Historically, summer heat in the April to June quarter is the single biggest driver of Indian power demand growth — the more extreme the temperatures are, the more electricity is consumed during these months.
This year, power demand is expected to spike amid forecasts and expectations of higher than normal temperatures.
India’s coal demand from power plants is set to rise by 11.5% in the April to June quarter amid the peak electricity demand season in the country in May and June, sources with knowledge of the matter told the Economic Times earlier this month.
India, the world’s second-largest coal consumer and importer behind China, has enough coal supply to meet demand in the summer months, according to officials and analyst estimates.
India’s Power Minister last month ordered coal-fired power plants to run at full capacity for three months starting April 1, to be prepared to meet peak power demand during the coming summer.
India is expected to see an all-time high peak summer demand of 270 gigawatts (GW) this year, which would beat the previous record-high demand of 250 GW from May 2024.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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