Covid-19 Lockdown- Impact on power demand and renewable generation: Analysis for the month of April 2020
There are many reports which have been pointing out on the decline in power requirement during the lockdown in the country. Because of lockdown, reduced industrial activity and lesser power use by commercial complexes have resulted in an overall decline in power consumption. The power met range has declined from 3400-4000 MUs daily in the month of April 2019 to 2700-3000 MUs daily in April 2020. When compared to the month of April 2019, the decline in power requirement during this month was about 24% or 26.9 BUs in absolute terms.
This has resulted in lesser power production by power plants, with the implication of reduced PLF for thermal plants and the forced shutdown of many thermal plants. Despite all this, the share of non-fossil fuel generation in a total generation has remained at the level of 24-30% in the complete month (as shown in the graph below), which is better than that experienced last year (18-25%).
Share of renewable energy (RE) generation in the power mix
The share of renewable generation in power mix has increased from the range of 7-12% in April 2019 to 10-14% in April 2020 (as shown in the graph below). Even if we remove the sudden spikes and analyze a general trends, the rise is quite visible from 7-9% (April 2019) to 10-12% (April 2020).
While we can think that the brunt of lesser demand was filled by lesser power generation from thermal plants, but when we see daily renewable generation data and compare with that of same-day in the same month last year, the answer will be different (refer the graph above). As per our analysis, the renewable generation has seen a decline of 0.68% in terms of net generation for the month of April 2020 (when compared to that in April 2019). The percentage may seem to be small, but it is worrisome because the renewable capacity addition during this period was more than 8.7 GW. So, despite capacity addition and must-run status, the generation in absolute terms has declined. This clearly indicates that some of the capacity was curtailed or back down for some reason, best known to grid operators or might be, generators.
Note: The renewable industry has been pointing out the need to provide information on renewable curtailment in the public domain, but no significant step has not been taken till now.