Chennai’s power demand breaches 5,000MW despite complaints of night interruptions

Chennai: Chennai recorded an all-time high electricity demand of 5,014 megawatts on Wednesday — surpassing the 5,000 MW mark for the first time — even as large parts of the city continued to reel under power cuts.According to TNPDCL, the peak demand was logged at 10.30 pm, breaching the previous record of 4,809 MW set on May 20. The city’s demand had reached 4,769 MW in 2024 and held as a benchmark for nearly two years.Officials attributed the surge to persistently uncomfortable weather over the past two weeks. Last summer, demand had stayed relatively subdued. Yet despite the record peak, Chennai’s overall consumption remained just below its all-time high — the city consumed 98.74 million units on Wednesday, about three million units short of the peak recorded on May 31, 2024.While Chennai’s power demand was within limits last year due to summer shows, this summer has made Chennai power guzzler again due to uncomfortable weather prevailing for the last two weeks. However, Chennai’s power consumption remains below 100 million units. On Wednesday, Chennai consumed 98.74 MU, at least three three million units short of the all-time high power consumption of 101.76 MU recorded on May 31, 2024.The record demand came alongside continued outages on Thursday in T Nagar, ECR and western suburbs, where multiple underground cable faults, feeder trips and pillar box failures were reported. Feeders from the Puduthangal, Rajakilpakkam, Siruseri, Sholinganallur and Perungudi substations failed, affecting ECR and surrounding areas. Maintenance work in Tiruverkadu caused additional planned shutdowns.TNPDCL officials said fault teams, supervised by designated officers, worked quickly to restore supply. In some areas, planned shutdowns of up to 30 minutes were carried out to stabilise the network. “We have also roped in additional manpower from Cuddalore and a few other regions to identify underground cable faults and fix them quickly,” said TNPDCL chairman and managing director J Radhakrishnan.To ease the burden on its Minnagam helpline—which residents say is often unreachable—TNPDCL has revived “fuse off call” helplines at 77 section offices across Chennai and its suburbs. “Consumers can register complaints at the local section office for immediate redressal,” an official said.