The power demand in Delhi reached a record high of 8,647 megawatt on Tuesday amid a severe heatwave in northern India, The Times of India reported citing data from the State Load Dispatch Centre.

The India Meteorological Department issued a red alert warning for a severe heatwave in the national capital on Tuesday. The minimum temperature in the city was 33.8 degrees Celsius, six points above the average.

“The power demand can be attributed to weather conditions that led residents to use more air conditioning and cooling appliances, pushing electricity consumption,” PTI quoted an unidentified official of a electricity distribution company as saying. “It is estimated that air conditioning can contribute to 30%-50% of domestic and commercial power consumption.”

The previous peak power demand in Delhi was 8,302 megawatt on May 29. The demand had surpassed the 8,000-mark for the first time on May 22. Since then, this threshold has been crossed eight times, according to The Times of India.

The northern region of the country witnessed its peak power demand of 89 gigawatts on Monday, the Union Ministry of Power said.

The demand was met by importing 25% to 30% of the requirement from neighbouring regions, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

“All utilities have been advised to maintain a high state of alert and minimise forced outages of equipment,” said the ministry.

The power ministry also said that efforts were being made to minimise partial and forced outages in power-generating units. “Additionally, plants under long-term outage have been sensitised to revive their units to ensure maximum power generation,” it said.

Additionally, all power generating companies have been advised to keep their plants in healthy condition to ensure full capacity availability for optimal operation.

In photos: Weathering Delhi’s blazing heatwave