THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Due to excessive power consumption, Kerala has been experiencing automatic load shedding recently. This happened thrice in Thiruvananthapuram city on Monday night. In this context, the government is planning to officially introduce load shedding. Power Minister K Krishnankutty said that a decision regarding this will be taken at the high level meeting held tomorrow.

Automatic load shedding occurs through the control system installed in the grids in case of consumption beyond the limits of the distribution system. Technically the feeders can be charged after five minutes but it will take at least half an hour to find out where it happened and restore power.

When load shedding is implemented, the employees stop the power supply at a predetermined time. 4500 MW is available for supply per day including generation in Kerala and from outside. But the current consumption is more than 5700 MW. This is balanced by a sharp increase in hydropower generation and overpriced imports.

There is only two weeks of water left in the reservoirs.

This is only 34% of the storage capacity. Only 1423 MW of electricity can be generated with this. Idukki, the largest reservoir, has 36% water.

Consumption is at a record high with the increase in heat. The electricity consumption did not cross 100 million units only in three days in April. As the consumption increases, so does the amount of electricity that has to be purchased from outside. Last day, 113.15 million units (5700 MW) were required for supply while the domestic generation was only 24.70 million units. Of this, hydropower was only 22.58 million units. 88.45 million units had to be purchased. Due to non-reduction of power consumption during peak hours, transformers trip frequently due to overloading.

One month of unannounced load shedding was introduced in 2021. It was officially implemented in 2014.

Automatic load shedding can be avoided by reducing consumption

1.The distribution system has a limit of power flow that it can handle. If the consumption goes above that, there will be great danger. The grid itself may stall. Automatic Demand Management System is a security system introduced last year to avoid this.

2. Accordingly, in 11 KV feeders and 33 KV feeders, whenever the consumption exceeds its maximum capacity, the supply will stop automatically. That is automatic load shedding. This happened in most of the feeders across the state. This situation can be avoided if we reduce the consumption of electricity.