The energy crisis in India is beginning to bite, with blackouts affecting states ranging from Uttar Pradesh to Rajasthan and Kerala over the weekend.
According to Subodh Agarwal, the state’s additional chief secretary for electricity, there were rolling outages of up to two hours in urban regions and four hours in rural parts of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan has received less than half of the coal it has contracted for from Coal India Ltd., he claims. According to government data, there were also power shortages in other states such as Punjab and Jharkhand. According to the data, Maharashtra, which is home to the country’s financial centre Mumbai, had 11 Gigatonnes of capacity offline on Friday, accounting for 35% of its supply sources, due to factors such as coal shortages.
The scarcity of coal, which accounts for over 70% of India’s electrical mix, is pushing generators and certain industrial users to purchase electricity at the power exchange. On the Indian Energy Exchange Ltd., spot rates have more than tripled in the last two weeks, reaching 16.42 rupees per kilowatt hour on Monday. According to the firm, this is the greatest level in 12 years.
The average amount of coal stock at a rising number of India’s thermal power plants has fallen to four days’ worth of stock, compared to the government’s guideline that thermal power plants retain 14 days’ worth of coal stock. On October 4, 2016, 16 thermal power reactors with a combined capacity of 17,475 MW (megawatts) had no coal stock. An additional 45 thermal power plants with a combined capacity of 59,790 MW had only enough coal to last up to two days.
Reasons behind coal crisis:-
“The current issue is not caused by a lack of coal mining capacity, but rather by poor foresight, planning, and stockpiling of coal by power generators and the country’s energy regulator,” said Sunil Dahiya, an analyst with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. This year’s severe monsoon rains have also been accused for harming domestic coal mining by flooding and preventing coal from being dispatched from mines. While this is nothing new, extra coal is normally imported to make up the difference in production. However, due to a global energy crisis that has seen international prices reach record highs, importing more coal has proven to be more expensive, resulting in bigger shortages than usual.
Other major causes of the supply shortage include lower-than-normal stock accumulation by thermal power plants in the April-June period and persistent rainfall in coal-producing areas in August and September, which resulted in reduced production and fewer coal despatches from coal mines. A steady tendency toward fewer imports, combined with high international coal costs, has resulted in plants reducing imports
According to the coal stock statistics for October 7, 2021, there were 69 non-pithead units that had coal stock for fewer than four days and were classified as supercritical stock. In addition, 23 plants had coal for fewer than seven days and were classified as critical stock.
The CEA oversees 135 coal-fired thermal power facilities with a combined capacity of more over 165 GW.
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