A waning wind season has had a drastic impact on power generation in Tamil Nadu, which depends on wind power from May to September.
TN is facing a serious power shortage with wind generation slipping by 75 per cent last week.
According to Tangedco, the generation from windmills dropped from 60 million units (MU) on October 2 to a mere 15 MU last Sunday.
The situation got worse Monday morning as wind energy generation was only 49 MW as against 1644 MW on October 2.
The drop in wind power generation has had a cascading effect and durations of unscheduled outages have increased in the districts from 10-12 hours to over 16 hours a day.
Load shedding has increased sharply from 3 MU on October 2 to 75 MU on Saturday but it fell to 64 MU on Sunday as wide-spread rain brought down the demand.
“We are heavily dependent on wind power as we cannot go for power purchase from northern region due to corridor congestion in Southern grid,” a senior Tangedco official said.He said if NE monsoon sets in October, widespread rainwould bring down the power demand.