Bracing for a hot summer

Just as winter marked its official exit from the Indian subcontinent, there are increasing concerns over unusually hot summer days ahead based on current weather analyses.

On February 26, India Meterological Department (IMD) said maximum temperatures are above normal by 3-5°C in most parts of Northwest, West, Central and East India and in the range of 35-37°C in many parts of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha and some parts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

On February 20, in Delhi, it was 9°C above normal while Mumbai suffered 6°C higher temperature than normal.

The world itself is 0.6°C hotter than normal with the Northern Hemisphere, where temperature is 0.84°C hotter than usual, taking a bigger hit than the South.

Several areas of USA are seeing temperatures of 10°C above normal.

IMD had earlier issued its first heat wave warning in Maharashtra, that too in the coastal regions of Kutch and Konkan areas but later withdrew following appearance of sea breezes.

A hot summer is likely to further drive up energy demands across the country, experts believe.

During Q1 of FY23, against the requirement of 405 Billion Units (BU), the energy supplied was 401 BU. Peak demand touched an all-time high of 212 GW on June 10, 2022, attributed to early summer with 68 days out of 91 days recording more than 3.53 degree celsius from the normal temperature.

During recent winter days, with the decline in minimum temperature, consumption of power and peak demand increased sharply, unlike in the past.

Peak demand grew 12 percent year-onyear (y-o-y) against overall energy demand growth of 9 percent.

While changes in average temperature do not affect electricity consumption to a large extent, extreme temperatures have a strong impact.

“The actual power supply position for December 2022 and January 2023 indicates surge in the all India energy demand and peak power demand as compared to the projected figures for 2022-23,” Central Electricity Regulatory Authority said on February 14.

Itis a phenomenon that occurs with the slowing or reversing of the direction of winds of the equatorial Pacific region and thereby increasing or decreasing the temperature of waters over a vast sea area of the Central and Eastern Pacific Ocean. There are two conditions. The first condition, wherein an increase in pressure over the West Pacific Ocean results in the movement of both water and wind to the East Pacific, is called El-Nino. It leads to rains in the East Pacific coast of Chile, Argentina, etc., and droughts in India, Indonesia, Australia, etc. The second condition is called La-Nina and it causes more-than-average rainfall in India

During El Nino, a lot of accumulated heat gets released into the atmosphere resulting in warm weather across the Indian subcontinent in winter and dry conditions and a deficient monsoon in summer. The El Nino weather phenomenon in 2015 in India led to extended hot and humid weather up to Oct ’15. The average temperature during April-October 2015 was more than 2.20 °C on 133 days out of 201 days. During the summer of April-June 2019, another El Nino year, the average temperature was more than 2.80 °C on 64 days out of 91 days.

The FY24 Union Budget focuses on sustainable economic recovery through infrastructure creation.

On the domestic front, the capex of `10 lakh crore and the capital outlay of `2 Lakh crores put up for the modernisation and expansion of the Indian Railways is the highest ever outlay.

The Budget has also proposed to set up an urban infrastructure development fund with an annual allocation of `100 billion to develop urban infrastructure in tier II and III cities.

The government has maintained its focus on capital expenditure with a budgeted growth of 37 percent in FY24 Budget

Estimates to `10 lakh from from FY23

Revised Estimates of `7.3 lakh crore.

Bulk of the hike comes from railways (51 percent growth), roads and highways (25 percent growth), defense (8.5 percent), etc.