As expected, India’s power demand hit a new record high as early summer heat waves pushed electricity consumption for cooling past previous highs.
In two consecutive days this weekend, India saw its peak power demand jump to 256 gigawatts (GW) on Saturday, beating the 252 GW record set the day prior, as intense heat waves marked the start of Indian peak electricity demand season, per official government data cited by Bloomberg.
The records set on Friday and Saturday beat the previous record-high demand of 250 GW from May 2024.
While soaring solar power helps generation during the day, India remains reliant on coal-fired electricity generation during the evenings and nights as the fossil generation stays a pillar of flexible, reliable power supply to meet the surge in demand.
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.
After milder temperatures tempered demand growth in the fiscal year to March 2026 to the lowest level in six years, demand is now beating peak consumption records amid heat waves at the start of this year’s summer.
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 GW this year, and even past 283 GW in case of prolonged and extreme heat, which would make grid balancing trickier and would likely boost coal generation to new highs.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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