Mumbai, June 24 (IANS) The power requirement of Reliance Energy, Reliance Infrastructure’s Mumbai power distribution arm, has gone up in last one year with the number of its customers increasing, a company official Thursday said.

‘Our demand has gone up and in view of the trend of new consumers choosing RInfra as power supplier of their choice, it is likely to increase further. In view of existing 2.2 million low end consumers and substantial new additions seen in lower strata only, it is imperative to have cheaper power available for them,’ a company spokesperson said.

This year, during summer, the company recorded a maximum demand (peak load) of 1,449MW as against the 1,410 MW of last year, an increase of almost three percent, whereas the minimum demand (Base Load) has gone up from 790 MW to 848 MW, an increase of almost six percent.

The increase in demand has called for requirement of more power for RInfra in view of its continuously increasing consumer base.

‘The company has seen its consumer base increased by 1.15 lakh new consumers over last year as against the migration of 45,000 consumers to another utility; thus there was a net addition 70,000 consumers,’ the spokesperson added.

Mumbai has around 4.4 million electricity consumers across the city, of which, Reliance Energy caters to the major chunk of around 2.8 million.