The Ministry of Coal (MoC), in conjunction with the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), has constituted a Core Management Team (CMT) in order to ensure uninterrupted coal supply to thermal power plants which have been facing acute shortage of the fuel.
The committee, comprising of representatives from the Ministry of Power (MoP), CEA and Coal India Limited (CIL) has been directed to monitor the coal stocks on a daily basis and ensure follow-up actions to improve coal supply to the power plants.
It may be recalled that coal stock levels plunged to multi-month lows in Aug’21, primarily due to increase in power demand on gradual rise in economic activities. Besides, lesser generation from hydro power plants worsened the situation as the shortfall is currently being met by coal-based power generation.
Action plan
The CMT has proposed regulating coal supply to plants where stock requirement is for more than 14 days. Consequently, the freed up coal would be distributed to the plants having super-critical and critical coal stock levels.
Secondly, coal dispatch from captive mines is planned to the plants so as to reduce dependence on supply from CIL.
Nevyeli Lignite Corporation (NLC) has committed to increase production from its Talabira coal mine, which can be supplied to the power plants. All in all, the committee has directed the captive miners to ramp up their production to augment coal stocks at their end-use plants.
Apart from increasing supply to these plants, the committee has recommended enhancement in power supply from additional sources so as to ease pressure on domestic coal requirements.
In this regard, coal from the captive mine of Odisha Coal and Power would be supplied to the newly commissioned power unit of NTPC Darlipali so that additional 800 MW would be added to the fleet and lessen the production burden of the existing plants.
It was also informed that the 1,000-MW Kudankulam nuclear power station would be back in action before 2 Sep’21 and replace some portion of coal generation.
Besides, pending redressal regarding the possible return of the 6,000-MW imported coal-based Mundra power plant is also open for discussion, which is currently not in operation despite having ample stock of around 30 days.
In a separate development, the committee has communicated that Damodar Valley Corporation would be clearing its outstanding dues to CIL subsidiaries, post-which the company would be able to ramp up power generation from its plants from the present level of 61% to a plant load factor (PLF) of 90%.
Current status
The new committee would be hoping for swift implementation of these measures given the deteriorating condition of coal inventories at the power plants.
As on 28 Aug’21, coal stock has fallen 14% w-o-w to 13.37 mn t compared to 15.64 mn t assessed on 21 Aug’21.
Notably, an unprecedented 129,847 MW of power plants are operating with coal stock less than or equal to 10 days of power generation of the total 168,456 MW capacity being monitored by the CEA.
Outlook
The country is at risk of a massive power shortage in case the coal supply is not regulated soon. On August 28, power supply shortage was assessed to the tune of 77.7 million units (MU), compared to the shortage of 2.3 MU on the same day in 2020.
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