DW BUREAU / PATIALA Punjab State Power Corporation Limited CMD A.Venu Prasad disclosed that the PSPCL has purchased 879 MW of power from power exchange at the rate of RS 3.85 per unit. This will help in meeting the increased power demand in the state due to the hot summer and paddy season. The PSPCL has made arrangements to meet the demand up to 13,700 MW. The purchase of power from the exchange is mainly due to the failure of one unit of Talwandi Sabo thermal plant at Mansa. The PSPCL has met highest power demand of 12805 MW and recorded consumption of 2901 lakh units on June 22 in the current paddy season so far, since its onset on June 10. He said that the demand is expected to rise further in the coming week due to the rise in AP demand. He said that last year maximum demand and consumption remained at 12683 MW and 2822 lakh units in the same month i.e. June-2020 though record highest ever consumption of 3018 lakh units was recorded in the month of July-2020. The highest ever demand of 13606 MW was however, recorded in the month of July of the year 2019. The PSPCL has operationalized all the four units GHTP Lehra Mohabbat, three units of GGSSTP Ropar and all the available units of IPPs. Nearly 850 MW of power is being contributed by hydel power stations of PSPCL to meet the paddy demand. He said that presently generation from inter-state generating stations is running about 600 to 700 MW short compared to last year due to low hydro potential and outage of 400MW from four thermal units of Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd. (CGPL) Mundra. Also 615 MW unit of state IPP Talwandi Sabo power plant, Mansa is under forced outage. He also added that this deficit has to be arranged on a day to day basis in order to fulfill the demand. This deficit is being arranged by procuring power on a day to day basis from the market, limited to transmission constraints of the national grid. A.Venu Prasad appealed to the power consumers of the state to declare their proper electricity load in order to avoid failure of transformers and provide continuous uninterrupted power supply. (editor@dailyworld.in)