Kochi: The weak monsoon has led to an unexpected hike in power consumption across the state. The Kerala State Electricity Board has decided to reintroduce load shedding on Thursday, with outages scheduled at various times between 9 pm and 1 am. To reduce the impact, the board has also ramped up commercial hydroelectric generation, reaching a record high.

Though Kerala requested 1000 MW from the power exchange on Thursday night, 75 MW was granted. Since the usage is still high, the probability of continuing with load shedding is being considered in the coming days.

The consumption of electricity during night time in the last five days saw a spike of 1.29 crore units. The consumption on June 1 was 7.31 crore units. On Thursday, it hit 8.60 crore units. The electricity board was not prepared for this as they didn't expect such a huge consumption rate, as it is the rainy season. This also made them make no effort to arrange to bring electricity from outside, in advance.

The hydropower generation rose to 4.09 crore units on Thursday, which is a record number. On June 1, it was 3.85 crore units.

Even in scorching summer, the electricity board produces only 2.3 to 2.8 crore units. Since the current generation of hydroelectricity will remain insufficient when compared to its consumption, load shedding was implemented on Thursday night. The load shedding was between 10 minutes and 30 minutes to reduce consumption by 300MW, depending on the nature of the area.