New Delhi:
The current power crisis is mainly due to the sharp decline in electricity generation from various fuel sources and not the unavailability of domestic coal, a top official said Sunday.
The above statement is gaining significance in the wake of reports from many states, including Maharashtra, that are dealing with power outages due to a shortage of coal.
In an interview with PTI, Coal Minister AK Jain attributed low coal stocks at power plants to several factors, including increased demand for electricity due to post-COVID-19 economic growth, the start of summer, the rise in gas price and imported coal and a sharp decline in electricity generation from coastal thermal power plants.
“It’s not a coal crisis, it’s a mismatch between power supply and demand… Power demand has registered an uptick as the economy has recovered, summers have arrived early and the price of gas and imported coal has risen sharply” , says Jain. explained.
He added that a slew of measures are already underway to improve the overall power supply in the country.
Gas-based electricity production, which has fallen dramatically in the country, has exacerbated the crisis.
“Some thermal power plants in India have been built along the coast to allow for the use of imported coal from nearby countries such as Indonesia… But with the sharp rise in the price of imported coal, they have reduced imports,” says Jain. said.
Coastal thermal power plants are now generating about half of their capacity due to soaring prices of imported coal. This has created a gap between the supply and demand of electricity.
The secretary further said states in the South and West have been dependent on imported coal. And when domestic coal is shipped via wagons/rakes to the domestic coal-fired power plants in these states to offset the loss in the generation of imported coal, the turnaround time of the rakes is more than 10 days, which creates problems with availability for other plants. the rake. †
Since last year, railways have loaded more coal than ever, even limiting rake supply to other sectors to meet increased demand from the electricity sector. In the month of March there was a good loading of the rakes.
Since Coal India is a state-owned company, the PSU is expected to bridge the gap between fuel supply and demand by providing additional coal. Last year, CIL supplied about 18 percent more coal to the electricity sector, as there was a fuel supply of 100 million tons.
“And also this year we are willing to give eight percent for this increased number,” the secretary said.
Coal India has produced 25 percent more in the first half of the current month compared to the same period last year, and shipments accordingly also increased by up to 25 percent.
CIL, the country’s largest coal producer and supplier, accounts for more than 80 percent of domestic coal production.
Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi had said on Saturday that 72.50 tons of coal is currently available from various sources including CIL, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) and coal laundries.
The minister had also said that 22.01 tons of coal is available from thermal power plants.
Joshi stated that there is sufficient availability of coal in the country and said it will last for a month and the availability will be replenished daily with record production.
According to preliminary government data, total coal production in FY’22 was 777.23 MT over 716 MT in FY’21, a growth of 8.55 percent.
Production of CIL increased 4.43 percent to 622.64 tons in FY’22, from 596.24 tons in FY’21.
Total coal shipments during FY’22 were 818.04 MT compared to 690.71 MT in FY’21, an increase of 18.43 percent. PTI SID DRR DRR
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)