India’s peak power demand on Tuesday hit a new record high of 260 GW as sweltering summers and heat waves upped the demand for cooling.“Today, the peak power demand (solar hours) of 260.45 GW was met successfully at 15:40 hrs. This is a new high surpassing Monday’s peak demand (solar hours) of 257.37 GW which was also successfully met,” Power Ministry said on X.Just a day ago, peak power demand had hit a record of 257.37 GW during late afternoon, surpassing the previous record of 256.1 GW last month.According to the Grid controller, Monday’s (May 18) peak power demand during the day hit 257.37 GW (15:42 hours). The evening peak demand stood at 241.24 GW. It was met through advance resource adequacy planning, optimal scheduling and dispatch of available generation resources and close real-time coordination among all stakeholders.Coal-based thermal power plants accounted for 69 per cent of the generation on Monday to meet the demand followed by 28 per cent from renewable energy sources. The peak shortage on Monday stood at 601 MW and the energy met stood at 5.62 billion units (BU). However, generation outage was on the higher side at 32.54 GW.IMD warningThe India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that day temperatures (maximum) were in the range of 38-47 Degree Celsius over north-west region, west, central, adjoining east and north peninsular India on Monday (May 18). Several parts of the country experienced heat wave to severe heat wave conditions. These included Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Jammu and Rajasthan.Recently, India successfully met its all-time highest peak electricity demand of 256.1 GW on April 25 at 15:38 hrs without any shortage.The national capital witnessed its record power demand on Tuesday. Delhi’s peak power demand touched 7,776 MW (3:30 PM) —the highest recorded so far in 2026 on May 19. On Monday, Delhi’s peak power demand had reached 7,542 MW in the afternoon and further increased to 7,600 MW during the night.While BSES Discoms successfully met the peak power demand of 3,492 MW and 1,683 MW in their respective areas, Tata Power-DDL also successfully supplied the season’s peak demand of 2,220 MW in its service area in Delhi.Published on May 19, 2026