In the festive month of October, when power demands tend to shoot up sharply, the country’s total coal-based electricity generation shot up by a strong 33 per cent year-on-year over the same period last year.

On the back of a strong show by independent power producers (IPPs) and state power generation companies, coal-fired electricity generation in October, 2023 increased to 111.13 billion units (BU) from 83.63 BU during October, 2022, according to the tentative monthly generation report of the National Power Portal.

More production

While coal-based electricity generation was at 83.489 BU in October, 2022, it stood at 82.627 BU in October, 2021.

Total coal-based electricity generation grew around 8 per cent year-on-year at 620.903 BU during the period of April-September this year. As the electricity generation shot up by over 30 per cent in the last month, all India coal-based power generation posted a higher 11.3 per cent y-o-y growth to over 732 BU for the period of April-October, 2023.

Coal-based generation alone accounted for around 70 per cent of India’s total electricity generation of 1045.85 BU, through diversified fuel mix, in April-October this year.

Key producers

Data sourced from tentative monthly generation report of the National Power Portal showed that it was the IPPs which led 11.3 per cent growth during the referred period, with 22.1 per cent year-on-year growth. State power generation companies followed the suit by notching 8.4 per cent y-o-y growth during the period.

Plant load factor (PLF) of IPPs also scaled up by 22.6 per cent during April-October this year as these plants worked at 67.4 per cent capacity compared to 54.99 percent of same period last year. PLF of state power generation companies grew by 7.8 per cent as they increased their PLF to 64.82 per cent against 60.15 percent during April-October last year.

PLF refers to the ratio between the actual generation by a power plant and the maximum rated capacity of it.

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