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Power demand at IEX falls 26% in the last eight days

<p> </p><p>A 26% fall in power demand at the Indian Energy Exchange over the last seven days pulled down prices by almost 23% to Rs 2.34 per unit. This was triggered by intermittent rainfall in various regions including metro cities. <br><br>Demand for power at the Exchange was 13.51 million units last Saturday. It dropped to 9.97 million units today. Sell bids on the other hand increased 31.62% to 34.34 million units bringing down prices from Rs 3.03 per unit last Saturday to Rs 2.34 per unit. <br><br>For entire period, total purchase bids were 95.68 million units, while sell bids were 252 million units. Some 86 million units of power were successfully traded and placed for delivery. Power volume cleared for trading gradually declined over the period. During the period it fell 18%. <br><br>Demand for power has been gradually falling over the past few weeks. According to data available, all-India energy demand and supply decreased 1.5% year-on-year and 1.4% year-on-year in September 2019, respectively. Energy demand was lower due to extended monsoon and decrease in demand from industrial states such like Maharashtra (down 16.2% year-on-year), Gujarat (down 16.6% year-on-year) and Tamil Nadu (down 5.9% year-on-year). On the supply side, the thermal sector witnessed a decrease in generation to 78.6 billion units (September 2018: 87.4BUs) on account of lower demand and coal shortages at power plants. <br><br>All-India capacity utilisation at power plants is lowest since April 2015 whereas the decline in central sector capacity utilisation to 58% is substantial compared to an average capacity utilisation of 72% over FY16-FY19. Overall generation was aided by a 19.1% year-on-year increase in hydro generation to 20.8 billion units. <br><br>Coal inventory at thermal power stations rose 56.1% year-on-year to 17.3 million tonnes in September 2019, however, it declined 19.9% month-on-month due to lower coal production. Coal availability at pithead and non-pithead plants on 30 September2019 remained low at 6 days and 13 days, respectively. <br><br>The short-term power price at Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) decreased year-on-year to Rs 2.77 per unit (September 2018: Rs 4.69 unit) on account of a decrease in demand at the exchange. Difference in buy and sell bid volumes in September 2019 in day ahead market increased to negative 4,504 million units.</p><p>Transmission line addition has been lower in FY19 with 5,303 circuit kilometres added till September 2019. Transmission line addition in September 2019 was 766 circuit kilometres with 64% of addition coming from the central sector. <br><br>Referred from economic times</p>

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