Power Minister R K Singh on Friday said the government has made preparations for providing uninterrupted electricity to the people during the peak summer demand season, April to June, with coal stocks at power plants at comfortable levels.

“We have made preparations and our preparations will work. We are ready for summer. We have held discussions with all the stakeholders such as the Ministries of Coal and Railways. We have got an assessment of how much domestic coal we will get. Our stocks are fine. Coal stocks would be in the region of 40-44 million tonnes (MT),” Singh said.

Speaking to reporters on sidelines of the launch of standards and labelling programme for grid connected solar inverter, the Minister added that the government has also assessed the requirement of imported coal for blending with domestic and the said order has also been issued.

On March 4, the Power Ministry advised thermal power plants (TPPs) to continue importing coal for blending at 6 per cent till June 2024 to maintain ample stocks at plant end.

Power demand

Government and analysts expect power demand to grow at 6-7 per cent y-o-y on the back of rising consumption from industries and households.

The peak power demand in FY24 was projected at 229 gigawatts (GW), but it scaled 241 GW in September 2023. The Ministry expects peak demand to grow at 7 per cent on an annual basis to 260 GW in FY25.

Rising demand for power is also pushing up the requirement for coal, which accounts for more than 70 per cent of India’s power generation.

As per Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) monthly coal report for January 2024, the receipt of domestic coal during the April-January period in FY24 stood at 656.3 MT against 603.1 MT a year-ago. Imported coal receipt stood at 52.7 MT against 47.8 MT.

Overall coal consumption during the first 10 months in FY24 rose by 10 per cent y-o-y to 706.5 MT.

According to CEA data, DCB plants consumed an average 2.22 MT coal per day during April to March 13 in FY24. The cumulative consumption during this period stood at around 774 MT.

Coal stocks

The Coal Ministry has also made extensive preparations for meeting the requirement of the dry fuel for the peak electricity demand.

India’s coal production not just surged past the magical 900 MT on March 6, 2024, but also surpassed the FY23 output of 893.19 MT bringing India closer to its 1 billion tonnes target in FY24, ending March 31.

The Ministry achieved the remarkable feat by surpassing FY23’s production of 893.19 MT, twenty-seven days in advance. This has also led to a comfortable coal stock position in the country.

According to the National Power Portal, the coal stocks at DCB plants with more than 189 GW capacity stood at 44.78 MT, as of March 14. Besides, reserves at imported coal based plants (ICB), with 18 GW capacity, was 2.68 MT.

The percentage of actual coal stocks compared to the normative stock requirement stood at 70 per cent for DCB plants and 57 per cent for ICB plants. As of March 14, 15 DCB plants and 6 ICB plants have critical stocks.

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