Riyaz Bhat
Srinagar, Nov 18: While the power sector continues to function with ‘decades old infrastructure’, Jammu and Kashmir is likely to witness growth in power demand by nearly 50 percent in a decade.
According to the official documents, authorities have projected that Jammu and Kashmir will likely have an extra power demand by 49.42 percent by the year 2034-35.
The official further clarified that the peak demand will be more than the average growth saying that the region may likely witness an increase in power demand by 6 percent each year from 2025-26 to 2034-2035.
Stating the year wise growth rate in power demand, authorities have said that in the year Jammu and Kashmir will likely have a five percent extra demand in the year 2025-26 followed by four percent in the year 2026-27, four percent in 2027-28, three percent in 2028-29.
It also said that in the year 2029-30, the region may experience growth rate in power demand by five percent followed by four percent in 2030-31, four percent in 2031-32, three percent in 2032-33, five percent in 2033-34 and four percent in the year 2034-35 respectively.
“Peak and Energy Demand for the UT of J&K and Ladakh has been taken as per the projections provided by the UT department. The Demand estimation by J&K was higher than projected by 20th Electric Power Survey of India (EPS). Therefore, the studies have been carried out using projections given by the J&K UT department,” it reads.
The documents further reveal that the future demand profile for the year 2034-35 has been projected using the demand profile of J&K for the year 2022-23 as the base profile. “The actual solar generation profiles and CUFs have been taken as provided by J&K.”
It also said that according to the data provided by J&K, an additional 392 MW of Coal (Shakti Scheme), 620 MW of solar and 1206 MW of hydro is planned till 2030.
