Gurugram, June 9 -- In a rare departure from the seasonal trend, Gurugram witnessed a significant drop in peak power load in May 2025 due to unseasonal and frequent rainfall, coupled with thunderstorms that prevented the onset of a heatwave, officials from the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) said on Saturday. Against an expected rise, the city's peak load dipped to 2,075 megawatts (MW) in May this year, a 260 MW drop compared to the 2,335 MW recorded during the same month in 2024 - the highest the year had registered. "This is a rare instance. The drop happened due to frequent rainfall and thunderstorms which kept temperatures from consistently rising, avoiding a typical summer heatwave," said Shyambir Saini, superintendent engineer, DHBVN, Circle-I. "Though the temperature was high on some days, it dropped periodically due to weather changes," Saini added. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Gurugram recorded 87.3 mm of rainfall in May 2025 - 290% higher than the monthly normal of 22.4 mm. IMD officials said this unseasonal precipitation significantly lowered maximum temperatures and led to the absence of heatwave conditions in the district. The load drop is all the more striking given that May typically marks the power demand peak in Gurugram. "Usually, we see a 7-10% increase in peak load each year, and our preparations are based on that pattern," said another senior DHBVN official. Despite the dip in May, April this year followed the expected rising trend. Peak load for April 2023 stood at 1,420 MW, which rose to 1,789 MW in 2024 and further increased to 1,916 MW in April 2025. On the infrastructure front, officials said discoms had proactively prepared for higher summer demand. "We bifurcated feeders and installed new transformers in multiple localities to mitigate overloading that occurred last summer," said Saini. "Because of the favourable weather and our infrastructure improvements, no significant overloading has been observed yet." Current daily loads are hovering between 1,500 MW and 1,700 MW, Saini added, but cautioned that a rise in temperature could push up the peak load in June. Notably, the discom received only 400-500 consumer complaints daily in May 2025, a sharp decline from the 1,100-1,200 daily complaints during the corresponding period last year, which were primarily due to outages from overloading and faults. "Due to favourable weather, fault-induced outages have been fewer. The ones that have occurred are minor and localised," said another DHBVN official. However, the number of total breakdown incidents has gone up due to rainfall-induced faults. In May 2025, the discom recorded over 850 instances of breakdowns that led to around 2,900 hours of outages. Of these, 320 instances - causing around 430 hours of outages - were attributed to rainfall and thunderstorm activities alone. In April 2025, there were 429 breakdowns accounting for 1,400 hours of outages. Rainfall and thunderstorms caused 124 of these, resulting in about 400 hours of downtime in affected parts of the district, according to discom officials. In contrast, May 2024 saw 170 breakdowns and 900 hours of outages - none attributed to rainfall or thunderstorms, as the city received no rainfall that month. Similarly, April 2024 had 125 breakdowns and 540 hours of outages without any rainfall-linked faults, officials added. Going further back, May 2023 witnessed 143 breakdowns and 590 hours of outages, while April 2023 saw 120 incidents leading to 485 hours of outages. In both months of 2023, none of the breakdowns were linked to rainfall or thunderstorms, though May 2023 did see 52.8 mm of rainfall - 136% above the normal. According to IMD, April 2025 rainfall was only 2.7 mm - 65% below the average of 7.7 mm - suggesting that the exceptional weather event was largely confined to May. Discom officials said that despite the increase in rainfall-related faults, the system remained resilient, thanks to infrastructure upgrades and moderate demand. "Outages caused by rain are typically quicker to resolve than systemic overloading failures," an official added. With temperatures expected to rise and skies to clear in the coming weeks, officials said a peak load surge in June remains a possibility....