Coal news and updates

Preparing for a peak power demand of 230 GW in FY 2024: Alok Kumar, power secy

Data analysed by Moneycontrol showed that coal stocks in the country were better during and post-monsoon period in 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.

The government is preparing to meet a projected peak electricity demand of 230.144 gigawatts (GW) next year (FY24), power ministry secretary Alok Kumar told Moneycontrol on Tuesday, November 22.

The projection of 230 GW is based on surveys carried out across states and this year’s jump in power demand owing to an extended heatwave coupled with renewed economic activity after a two-year pandemic-induced lull.

India’s electricity demand touched a record high of 211.856 GW on June 10 this year, an increase of 5.6 percent compared to the peak demand of 200.570 GW recorded on July 7, 2021.

“We are making all arrangements for next year based on a projected peak power demand of 230 GW. It may not touch this much due to various factors such as favorable weather, but the government has to be prepared for the worst.

So, for the financial year 2023-24, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) through its periodic electric power survey (EPS) worked up an estimated peak electricity demand of 230,144 MW (230.144 GW),” said Kumar.

Data from the power ministry showed that even if compared on a monthly basis with last year, power demand this year (2022-23) was higher by 10-13 percent.

In April-May this year, many states in the country faced hours of outages because of an unrelenting surge in power demand due to a sudden heatwave, rapid economic recovery and shortage of coal to generate power.

Almost a fourth of India’s power generation capacity was shut in April, mainly due to lack of fuel. The situation was expected to aggravate further, especially post-monsoon around October. Typically, coal mines get flooded and the supply chain gets disrupted due the monsoon affecting offtake by power plants. The country faced a similar coal crunch last year in October but managed to avoid it this year.

Power sector players believe that the power crisis of the summer of 2022 led to the government machinery, generation companies and Coal India being better prepared for October 2022. Data analysed by Moneycontrol showed that coal stocks in the country were better during and post-monsoon period of 2022 compared with 2021.

In October 2021, India had 135 coal-fired power plants, of which on average 104 plants (77 percent) had critical or supercritical coal stocks throughout the month, which means they had less than 25 percent of their normal requirement.

But in October 2022, the number of thermal power plants (TPPs) increased from 135 to 180, up 33 percent. Of these, 79 plants (44 percent) had coal stocks at critical or supercritical levels. All this even as the peak power demand in October 2022 was slightly higher at 186.909 GW, compared to 180.293 GW in October 2021.

Kumar said the situation was precarious last October (2021) as coal stocks at TPPs had fallen as low as 8 million tonnes (MT) at the beginning of the month.

“This time a repeat of last year was averted because for the first time TPPs had coal stocks of more than 20 MT at the start of October itself. It was a result of constant coordination between the three ministries of coal, power and railways.

Also, we took the decision of keeping blending of imported coal to a bare minimum this monsoon compared to last year and this year’s summers. But, nevertheless, it is still required, even though the quantum would vary depending on the power demand,” he said.

On October 12, Union coal minister Prahlad Joshi said that as much as 40 MT of coal will be available with TPPs by March next year.

When asked about current coal stocks, Joshi told reporters, “During the pandemic, coal stocks at TPPs in October hovered around 10-12 MT. This time we started with 26 MT in October and in November, it will be scaled up to 30 MT. Our efforts are on to take up India’s overall domestic coal production to 900 MT in this financial year.”