India’s power producers have set a record for electricity generation as swathes of the world’s most populous nation swelters in an intense heatwave, the ministry of power said.
“Thursday was the fourth consecutive day when the peak power demand (solar hours) reached a new all-time high," the ministry said in a statement.
It said that at 3:45 pm (local time) on Thursday, when temperatures sizzled at 45.3°C in the capital, New Delhi, the country’s peak power demand of 270.82 gigawatts (GW) was successfully met.
“This figure represents a new high in peak demand met,” the ministry stated, surpassing Wednesday’s high of 265.44 GW.
“The surge in demand appears to be linked to the greater usage of cooling appliances,” the ministry added, in a statement issued late on Thursday on social media.
Thermal power generation was largely coal-based, with solar contributing 22 percent, wind and hydropower each accounting for five percent, and the remainder coming from other sources.
India, the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2070, but remains heavily reliant on coal.
Despite the power production, followers of the ministry’s X account reported that there had been cuts in their districts.
The intense heat can overload old wiring and transformers, causing localised blackouts.
The South Asian country, home to 1.4 billion people, is no stranger to scorching summers, with routine heatwaves occurring between April and June.
Years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
The India Meteorological Department said the highest maximum temperature recorded on Thursday was 47.6°C in the city of Banda in Uttar Pradesh state, 450 kilometres southeast of New Delhi, and moderately cooler than the 48.2°C recorded earlier in the week.
The country’s highest officially recorded temperature is 51C, measured at Phalodi in Rajasthan in 2016.
In April, international air-quality monitoring platform AQI said its daily heat index, made up of six measurements including temperature, solar intensity, wind, precipitation and humidity, recorded that all of the world’s top 50 hottest cities were in India.
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