New Delhi: Depletion of coal reserves before the monsoon in thermal power plants in India indicates that another power crisis may arise in the country by July-August. This has been said in the report of the independent research organization Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). Power stations located at the mines currently have coal reserves of 13.5 million tonnes and power plants across the country have 20.7 million tonnes of coal reserves.
CREA, in its report titled “Failed to Lift: India’s Energy Crisis Is a Coal Management Crisis”, said, “Data collected from official sources suggest that coal-fired power plants can withstand even a modest increase in energy demand.” and coal transportation needs to be planned in advance.”
The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) estimates that the maximum energy demand will reach 214 GW in August, and the average power demand may also exceed 13,3426 million units during May. CREA said, “With the advent of the southwest monsoon, there will be difficulties in mining and also in transportation of coal from mines to power stations. If coal reserves are not built up to sufficient levels before the monsoon, the country may face another power crisis in July-August.
The report said the recent power crisis in the country was not due to coal production but its “distribution and apathy of the authorities”. “It is evident from the data that despite adequate coal mining, adequate coal reserves were not maintained in thermal power plants,” it said. India recorded a record production of 777.2 million tonnes of coal in 2021-22, an increase of 8.54 percent over the previous year’s production of 716 million tonnes.
Sunil Dahiya, the analyst at CREA, said the country’s total mining capacity in 2021-22 stood at 150 million tonnes while the total production stood at 777.2 million tonnes, which is exactly half of the production capacity. Dahiya said if there was a real shortage of coal, coal companies had the option of increasing production. He said that this situation has not happened just now, but coal reserves from power plants are continuously decreasing since May 2020. Dahiya said that the main reason for the situation of power crisis last year was that the power plant operators did not create enough coal reserves before the monsoon.
