It looks like Kerala got lucky this week. There were very limited power restrictions on September 23 (Wednesday) and none on September 24 (Thursday). Paradoxically, these were also the days Kerala had the highest power consumption this week.

On September 23, the consumption was 96 million units, the highest in the week. Next day, it was 94.26 MU. On Monday and Tuesday, when Kerala felt the full force of the power restrictions, the consumption was relatively low at 91 and 93 MU.

On the face of it, nothing seems to have changed. For instance, there was no noticeable surge in the power flow from the assured sources of supply like long-term arrangements, medium-term open access and central generating stations. On these days (September 23 and 24), as has been the case in the last two months, the flow from these supposedly guaranteed sources was lesser than the contracted amount. While Kerala should have actually received at least 62-63 MU, the supply was limited to 54-55 MU; erratic southwest monsoon had badly hit generation in the coal-based based stations in the northern and eastern parts of the country.

And in these two days when power restrictions were eased, hydropower generation had not even been stagnant, it was scaled down.

During the August and September months, KSEB generated 24-25 MU daily from its hydel stations. On September 23, it was 23 MU. And on September 24, when consumption was high and still there had been no load shedding anywhere in Kerala, the generation in hydel stations rather than being pumped up was brought down to 17 MU.

So what went in Kerala's favour? Heavy rains in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha. Sudden drop in temperatures in these states saw their daily consumption plummet quite dramatically.

In Odisha, where the daily consumption in September was in the '127-130 million units' range, it dropped to 120 million units on September 23 and further down to below 115 on September 24. In Andhra Pradesh, daily usage touches nearly 250 MU. But on September 23 and 24, it was 212 MU and 192 MU respectively. In Telangana, daily use normally crosses 290 MU. On September 23 and 24, it dropped to 274 MU and 247 MU respectively.

What this meant was that these states had enough power to spare that they put up for sale in the power markets.

Till September 23, KSEB was finding it hard to purchase even 10 MU from the day-ahead and real-time markets. But on September 23, it purchased 17.34 MU from the open market. And on September 24, it could purchase a whopping 23 million units. KSEB could afford to rest its overworked hydel stations.

Late monsoon showers in Kerala also helped. On these two days, because of the drop in evening temperatures in Kerala, the peak hour demand fell quite vertically that the shortage during evening peak hours was just 57 MW on September 23. And on September 24, there was no shortage at all.

Usually, during this September, the peak-hour shortage was in the 600-700 MW range. A senior KSEB engineer said that such a favourable situation could sustain for a day or two.