India saw a rebound in coal-fired power generation. As power plants stretched to satiate the country’s electricity demand, generation grew 6% m-o-m to 83.49 billion units (BU) in Oct’21 compared to 78.92 BU in Sept’21.
Coal-based plants were provided momentary relief just prior to the onset of winter, as generation had dropped to a three-month low in Sept’21. However, these plants were again compelled to raise their generation schedule due to decline in output from renewable sources.
Although overall power generation had seen a modest fall m-o-m, coal’s share in the energy mix had jumped from 64% in Sept’21 to 69% in Oct’21.
Imbalance in power supply
Rise in power demand boosted by the revival in economic activities post-relaxation of Covid curbs has gradually increased coal consumption, which has been a major reason for the abrupt fall in inventory levels at the power plants.
The situation was more pronounced in Oct’21, as closure of several plants due to coal shortages affected power supply.
Notably, India’s power supply shortage of 1,294 million units (MU) in October was the worst since Apr’16. In general, monthly average power shortage during Apr-Oct’21 was a marked 533 MU which is 68% more than the average of 318 MU assessed in Apr-Oct’20.
Domestic miner CIL has managed to pull the power plants out of criticality with help of increased coal supply.
Evidently, stockpiles at power plants have increased to 13.08 mn t as on 7 Nov’21, up 79% m-o-m from 7.31 mn t in the corresponding period of Oct’21. Besides, the number of plants having critically low inventory levels that dropped below nine days of power generation was gradually reduced from 110 to 67.
As a result, power deficit has decreased to 6.34 MU/day in the first eight days of Nov’21 as compared to the highs of 42 MU/day seen for the entire month of October.
Outlook
With electricity consumption showing signs of slowing down, the looming power supply concern has been addressed to an extent and the coal inventory is expected to improve going forward.
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