Environmental News from India:
- India’s experienced its hottest March on record, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of rising fire risks as the country heated up too much too soon.
- Industrial disruption and widespread power cuts are bad news for corporate India, as economic activity has just started to pick up after months of stagnation.
- Power cuts are expected to worsen in the coming days as the heatwaves and a pickup in economic activity will increase electricity demand at the fastest pace in nearly four decades.
India is facing its worst electricity shortage in more than six years just as scorching temperatures force early closures of schools and send people indoors.
Extreme heat parched large swathes of South Asia this week after India’s hottest March on record, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of rising fire risks as the country heats up too much too soon.
Soaring power demand
The leap in power demand has left India scrambling for coal, the dominant fuel used in electricity generation in the country. Coal inventories are at the lowest pre-summer levels in at least nine years.
Electricity supply fell short of demand by 1.88 billion units, or 1.6%, during the first 27 days of April, the worst monthly shortfall in over six years, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the federal grid regulator POSOCO.
India last faced a big power crisis in October, but the situation this month is far more widespread, with more than half of the country facing more power cuts than in October.
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Source: Science the Wire