PUNE, March 25: The power crisis in the State has further deepened with as many as six major generators being closed down for "technical defects". This is in addition to the three that have already shut down as part of routine "outage" for maintenance.The collective loss of power generation due to the forced closure of six generators is 1680 megawatts in addition to 550 megawatts due to the planned `outage', sources in Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) told The Indian Express. For the board, the total shortfall amounting to 2230 megawatts has come as a shock at a time when it is struggling to strike a balance between the demand and supply of power.As a result of acute power shortfall, MSEB has been forced to go in for frequent load-shedding in addition to the phased load-shedding during the week. With the demand for power soaring with summer, the Board is walking on a tight rope in its attempt to meet the demand that has gone up to 10200 mw as against the available power of 9500 mw.While the generation capacity has not increased, the demand for power in the State has gone up. Last year, the maximum demand of the State fluctuated between 9600 to 9700 mw whereas this year it has crossed the 10,000 mw mark. In Pune Urban Zone (PUZ) alone, the electricity demand has gone up by a whopping 40 mw in one year over 710 mw registered last year. ``A total of 40,000 new consumers have been added in one year in the PUZ taking the total figure to 7.6 lakh consumers, and most of these are the domestic consumers,'' Ashok Shinde, chief engineer PUZ said.Every year, the demand for power increases by an average of 8 per cent but this year it has been more due to the addition of new consumers. Use of air coolers, fans, air conditioners goes up which subsequently results in an increase in demand for power, explained Shinde. When asked about any steps taken by MSEB to avoid frequent load shedding Shinde said the board was buying power from National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to make up for the shortfall. However, he said, there was no alternative to load-shedding as long as the demand and supply ration continued to be highly imbalanced.``The problem will be solved once Enron generates power by April this year. It will add another 750 mw of power to the State grid,'' said Shinde.
