With a steep decline in wind power generation in the last few days, many parts of the state except Chennai have been going without power for over 10 hours a day.
The power generation from wind sources has begun to plummet with the wind season drawing to a close by September-end.
The wind energy generation dropped to 28 MU (million units) on Wednesday as against the normal generation of 70 to 75 MU a day from windmills during the wind season between May and September.
The generation from the windmill varied from 100 MW on Thursday morning to 2,800 MW in the evening, a release from Tangedco said.
Due to drop in wind generation, the availability was only around 6,200 MW leaving a gap of around 4,000 MW, which forced the authorities to carry out additional load shedding even on Vinayaka Chaturthi.
“As the wind generation started improving from 4 pm, the load shedding was normalised step by step. Load shedding was carried for about eight to 10 hours in total in the areas other than Chennai,” the statement said.
Tangedco said that situation become worse as the hydropower availability is less due to poor storage in reservoirs.
Shortage of 1,125MW power in central generating stations due to labour strike, poor quality of coal in Talcher generating station and forced outages in other central generating stations have also resulted in limited availability of power for the state.
“We have even started doubting whether a corporation exists as the power crisis is only becoming complicated each passing day.
On what basis, would one justify 16 hours of power cut for the districts, while just an hour for Chennai,” asked J. James, president of Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Micro Enterprises.