In the summer season of 2024, when it appeared that electrical energy consumption was starting to get out of hand, the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) needed individuals to keep away from charging their e-vehicles within the night hours. The power utility had a motive for it. Consumption ranges typically spike after 6 p.m., notably in summer season when air-conditioners are the go-to weapon in opposition to the warmth. But the sharp rise in e-vehicle numbers had opened a brand new battlefront for the KSEB that 12 months. Car batteries, nonetheless within the evolving stage, took a very long time to cost, driving up power demand. By May the subsequent 12 months, tips have been in place to advertise EV charging throughout sunlight hours with decrease tariffs because the proverbial carrot.
Cut to 2026 summer season. A new ‘villain’ was added to the script. Electric cooktops first drew headlines when the West Asia disaster spawned an unprecedented LPG scarcity in Kerala. As March ended and April rolled in, dragging a power disaster with it, electrical cooking home equipment too have been added to the narrative of causes for the surge in electrical energy consumption. Air-conditioners, not an extravagance in Kerala’s muggy climate, stay the chief culprits together with EV charging and using energy-guzzling electrical home equipment within the night hours.
The risk of power cuts
With the seasonal summer season rainfall nonetheless within the deficit bracket, the electrical energy demand after 6 p.m. crossed 6000 megawatts (MW) for the primary time in Kerala through the 2026 summer season. On April 18, it touched a report 6033 MW. Daily electrical energy consumption rose to an unprecedented 118.26 million models (mu) on April 26, elevating the spectre of formally sanctioned load shedding and power cuts, one thing to which Kerala has been immune in recent times. A high-level assembly of the Power Department and the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) on April 28 ultimately determined to impose below-30-minute ‘load restrictions’ between 6 p.m. and midnight in unavoidable circumstances for preserving the soundness of the electrical energy grid.
Fortunately for the KSEB and the general public, the curbs didn’t final lengthy as summer season rainfall strengthened over the State, taking consumption down. In actuality, e-cooking was solely the newest addition to a rising checklist as Kerala’s dependence on electrical energy will increase by the 12 months.
Reasons for disaster
All this has served to put naked one factor this summer season season: the lack or, because the extra sterner critics of the KSEB allege, reluctance of the power system to adapt to the expansion of renewables. Experts and the ‘prosumer’ class — customers who’re additionally electrical energy producers — really feel that the KSEB is skirting the actual crucial; the necessity for a system that’s supportive of modifications within the sector. Effective integration of renewables, particularly daytime-generated photo voltaic power pumped into the grid by prosumers, continues to pose issues for the KSEB, largely on account of inadequacies within the power system.
“No one can halt the growth of solar power. It is a reality,” says Jameskutty Thomas, a prosumer who represents the Kerala Domestic Solar Prosumers Community. He estimates that photo voltaic models within the State generate roughly 6 to eight million models (mu) day by day. “But the problem is, the KSEB does not have systems to store this power for later use. Consequently, it either surrenders or sells surplus power in hand during daytime and buys electricity at exorbitant rates to meet the evening demand,” he says.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) knowledge present how Kerala’s photo voltaic power sector has grown. The State’s whole photo voltaic capability stood at 2215.59 MW on March 31, 2026. Of this, home rooftop models (together with models below PM-Surya Ghar Yojana) alone accounted for 1850.4 MW. Recently, the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission had discovered that the KSEB has been surrendering as much as 1000 MW contracted from the central producing stations (CGS) and different round the clock (RTC) contracts through the daytime to accommodate photo voltaic power influx from rooftop and different photo voltaic era sources.
The BESS that didn’t take off
In 2022, the KSEB had proposed piloting a container-sized battery power storage system (BESS) undertaking in Thiruvananthapuram metropolis. But it didn’t take off then. “Viability gap funding (VGF) was available for it, but the officers’ association in the KSEB opposed it saying it was not viable. On the other hand, the solar capacity of the State was not as much as it is now,” remembers B. Ashok, a 1998 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer who was chairman and managing director of the utility on the time.
“What is lacking in the KSEB is planning,” says R.V.G. Menon, former director of the Agency for New and Renewable Energy Research and Technology (ANERT). A eager observer of the power sector, Prof. Menon had put in a rooftop photo voltaic unit with battery storage at his dwelling in 2012 when it was a novelty within the State. Today, from an upgraded unit, he provides round 300 models a month to the grid after his use. The actual situation going through the State’s power sector, in line with him, is power era and its storage.
“The KSEB views solar power as a nuisance. In their short-sightedness, they see only that there is no power shortage during daytime as the demand is anyway less. On the other hand, they buy power at ₹10 and ₹12 per unit to meet the high demand in the evening hours. It is an elementary fact that renewable energy is a variable entity and it has to be stored. The KSEB is yet to commission a single BESS or a pumped storage project (PSP), the two storage options for renewable energy. The KSEB had drawn up a report in 2014 saying Kerala had the potential for PSPs worth 5075 MW using existing reservoirs,” he says. (PSPs are methods with an higher and a decrease reservoir. Water is pumped to the higher stage throughout daytime utilizing cheaper renewable power. The saved water is launched all the way down to work the generators in periods of upper power demand.)
Constraints in system
Then there are the ‘system constraints’ that hobble effectivity. Voltage imbalances, for example, forestall photo voltaic prosumers from successfully injecting surplus power into the grid. Users and consultants really feel that such points would get aggravated until they’re addressed correctly.
R. Harikumar, Director of Energy Management Centre – Kerala, the Power Department company that acts because the State nodal company for Bureau of Energy Efficiency initiatives, factors out that Kerala continues to be unable to faucet the photo voltaic potential, regardless of the fast development of the sector. He says the power sector might discover it troublesome transferring forward with out power storage methods. “There was an announcement in 2017 that Kerala’s solar capacity would touch 1000 MW in 2022. So the EMC organised a conference in 2018 to discuss the establishment of PSPs that could handle the storage needed for this daytime generation. But we still don’t have one,” he says.
There are research that peg Kerala’s photo voltaic potential at roughly 30 gigawatts (GW), unfold throughout a number of photo voltaic classes comparable to rooftop and ground-mounted photo voltaic and agri-photovoltaics. Kerala has additionally recognized 13 areas for PSPs to harness a possible of greater than 6 GW of PSP.
Just 30% of requirement
But the fact is considerably completely different. It is not any information that the southern State produces solely about 30% of its electrical energy requirement. The relaxation is met by way of an elaborate system of brief, medium and long run power-purchase contracts, provides from the central producing stations (CGS), and ‘banking’ and ‘swap’ preparations with utilities elsewhere within the nation. Meeting the summer season demand stays a tight-rope stroll for the KSEB, the State-run power firm which handles era, transmission and distribution inside Kerala. This is particularly true when summer season rainfall goes AWOL, prefer it did this time.
On many days within the present season, ‘imports’ accounted for over 80% of the demand met, revealing, but once more, the extent of Kerala’s reliance on expensive power purchases and power era vegetation located outdoors its boundaries. The utility spent ₹12,982.59 crore in 2023-24 and ₹12,749.65 crore in 2024-25 on power purchases.
Internal era
According to Kerala authorities figures, as on March 31, 2025, the State’s put in capability — private and non-private included — stood at 4412.14 MW, of which hydropower accounted for 2284.42 MW, 51.8%. The State’s photo voltaic power functionality, having gained momentum in recent times, contributed 1519.66 MW (34.4%). Thermal power and wind accounted for 536.4 MW (12.2%) and 71.53 MW (1.6%) respectively. The KSEB’s personal inside era stood at 2409.8 MW, together with 2196.4 MW of hydel, 160 MW of thermal, 51.4 MW of photo voltaic and a couple of MW of wind power.
The Economic Review 2025 has famous that ‘Growing electricity demand requires increased generation capacity and reliable power supply.’ When drawing up the 14th Five Year Plan for Kerala (2022-27), the State Planning Board had listed ‘Resource constraints in promoting renewable energy projects,’ ‘Lack of transparent policy on power procurement from renewable energy sources,’ and ‘Delay in commissioning of projects’ as three ‘Critical gaps/issues in the energy sector’ through the thirteenth Plan interval. Power sector observers say these points stay unaddressed.
During the latest power disaster, the KSEB was roundly scolded by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission for slipshod summer season administration. The Commission headed by T.Ok. Jose, a former bureaucrat, noticed that contingency conditions in the summertime months weren’t a brand new phenomenon for Kerala. “During the 2024 summer months, the State had gone through a similar situation and KSEB was expected to gain sufficient experience in handling such a situation,” the panel noticed in a latest order.
Factors elevating power consumption
The State power regulator, which performs an necessary function within the power sector, asserted that the LPG scarcity contributed to the improved consumption in 2026 summer season other than local weather change components and the sparse summer season showers. “Factors contributing to the hike in consumption could have been detected well in advance and appropriate information, education and communication measures and advocacies for reducing the peak-hour consumption could have been taken,” Mr. Jose wrote within the order.
On its half, the KSEB had categorically denied any mismanagement or lack of planning for the summer season, notably within the matter of water administration within the hydel reservoirs. A senior KSEB official stated that the KSEB has a number of BESS and PSP tasks below method in the intervening time. The KSEB’s first large-scale BESS is below growth at Mylatti in Kasaragod district. This undertaking has a capability of 125 megawatts (MW)/500 Megawatt Hour (MWh) the place MW denotes the utmost quantity of power that it will possibly ship at a given second, and MWh, the overall quantity of power that the system can retailer, the official stated. “Additional BESS will come up at KSEB substations at Areacode in Malappuram, Sreekantapuram in Alappuzha district, Pothencode in Thiruvananthapuram and Mulleria in Kasaragod. Several PSPs are also in the pipeline,” the KSEB official notes.
Prosumer organisations, in the meantime, name for extra localised options. “What we need is transformer-based energy storage. You also cannot expect every solar prosumer to buy battery storage, which is unaffordable for ordinary prosumers unless there is some kind of subsidy support. They’ve already spent a lot of money on the solar units,” factors out Jameskutty Thomas.
In phrases of power safety, the hovering power demand is bound to pose formidable challenges for the State and its new authorities. Kerala’s peak electrical energy demand will quickly exceed 7000 MW, pushed largely by a surge in air-conditioner use, in line with the report ‘Analysing Viability of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) at the Sub-national level,’ ready by EMC – Kerala. It says that EVs, induction cookstoves and air-conditioners would place a further power demand of, respectively, 339 mu, 340 mu and 1208 mu on the power system. Having the infrastructure in place to accommodate rising wants would show to be a big problem.