India’s power supply deficit held steady at 0.7 percent during financial year (FY) 2017-18, coming in roughly unchanged from the figures reported during financial year FY 2016-17.

During 2017-18, 1,203,567 million units (MUs) of electricity were supplied against the requirement of 1,212,134 MUs. This was 8,567 MU less than the targeted energy requirement, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

But even though the power supply deficit was unchanged year-over-year, the peak deficit which is a measure of the supply deficit during peak demand hours, rose to 2 percent from the 1.6 percent recorded in FY 2016-17.

The power supply deficit and peak power deficit listed by region is presented in the accompanying chart:

During FY 2017-18, the northeastern region faced the largest power supply deficit of 2.8 percent, followed by the northern region at 1.7 percent, and the eastern region at 0.7 percent. The southern and western regions recorded the lowest supply deficits of 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively.

The recorded figures fell short of targets set by CEA in its 2017 Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR), a study on the anticipated power supply for FY 2017-18. According to the report, India had been expecting to record a power surplus of 8.8 percent and a peak surplus of 6.8 percent during FY 2017-18.

According to the CEA report, power generation in India grew by 3.95 percent in FY 2017-18. The northern, northeastern, and western regions of India accounted for the fastest growth in India’s generation capacity.

In FY 2017-18, power generation in the northern region grew by 7.56 percent, in the western region by 4.73 percent, in the northeastern region by 6.42 percent, in the southern region by 1.09 percent, and in the eastern region by 0.54 percent.

Mercom reported in January that solar was the leading source of power capacity additions during calendar year 2017, with installed capacity of approximately 9.5 GW accounting for 45 percent of total power capacity additions.