Coal news and updates

‘Imported coal being blended with domestic to bridge shortfall’

July 24: As per information furnished by Central Electricity Authority (CEA), imported coal is being blended with domestic coal (in some power plants) to bridge the shortfall in domestic availability of coal. This was stated by Piyush Goyal, Minister of State for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on July 24.

Coal is blended up to 15%, subject to feasibility of technical parameters of boiler designs etc. Coal imported for blending during the last three years and current year is given below:

The minister further stated that the reasons indicated for imports lesser than the quantity assessed for the year include:

(i) High cost of imported coal, in general
(ii) Power utilities’ reluctance to import more coal, especially those plants which are far off from ports; and
(iii) Electricity generated on imported coal not getting scheduled in merit order of operation. As a result, this is leading to sub-optimal utilisation of plant capacity.

Technical limitations of boiler designs etc have also been cited as a factor that limits the use of imported coal.

As per the current import policy, coal is already under the open general license (OGL) and consumers are free to import the commodity from the source of their choice as per their contractual prices on payment of the applicable duty, the minister added.