Electricity demand in Uttarakhand will nearly double within the next seven years. International consulting firm McKinsey Global has revealed this in its study report. Based on this, power availability planning is now underway at the government and UPCL levels.
Principal Secretary of Energy R. Meenakshi Sundaram commissioned the international consulting firm McKinsey Global to conduct a study on the current demand, availability, and future needs of electricity in the state. The company prepared its report after studying UPCL and other energy corporations, as well as several states. The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CEA) has also acknowledged that power demand in Uttarakhand is set to nearly double.
Regarding historical demand data, the projected demand was 2,216 MW in 2019, 2,233 MW in 2020, 2,372 MW in 2021, 2,468 MW in 2022, 2,594 MW in 2023, 2,635 MW in 2024, and 2,863 MW this year. Mackenzie acknowledges that this demand will continue to grow. Now, the biggest challenge for the government and UPCL is availability.
This is the power demand calculation from 2026 to 2032.
Year: CEA-McKinsey-Valid Estimated
2026- 3072- 3124- 3035
2027- 3249- 3402- 3217
2028- 3435- 3664- 3410
2029- 3623- 3922- 3614
2030- 3847- 4105- 3831
2031- 4094- 4255- 4004
2032- 4159- 4403- 4184
(Power demand in megawatts)
Currently, 3308 megawatts of PPAs are available.
UPCL data If we look at it, till now PPAs for 3308 MW have been signed. These include 533 MW from coal plants, 46 MW from atomic, 390 MW from gas based, 52 MW from biomass, 1970 MW from hydro, 100 MW from hybrid and 217 MW from solar. At the same time, 200 MW of power will be available from THDC’s pump storage plant. There is a plan to increase the power availability to 4218 MW by the year 2029-30. For this, 26 MW from coal based plants, 438 MW from hydro, 309 MW from solar will be made available.
