The Indian power sector has not seen any capacity addition in coal-based power plants during April-September, 2022 at a time when the country registered a steep rise in power demand.
Notably, the last capacity addition in the coal segment came in the form of the commissioning of the 660-MW third unit of the Nabinagar power station in Bihar, back in March, 2022.
The Ministry of Power (MoP) has highlighted that new coal-fired plant capacity to the tune of 6,350 MW would be added in FY2022-23. However, several projects are currently being delayed owing to numerous constraints resulting from Covid restrictions.
The slow development of coal-based plants was largely overshadowed by the rapid progress made in renewables. Notably, capacity addition for renewable grew 15% y-o-y to 8,195 MW during April-September, 2022 against 7,099 MW in April-September, 2021.
The minimal capacity addition of 120 MW in the convention sources (comprising of thermal, large hydro and nuclear plants) came entirely in the hydro-power segment.
Strong performance by coal-based plants
Despite the dismal performance in terms of capacity addition, the coal-fired plants have remained the backbone of the country’s energy mix. This was supported by the fact that coal-based plants account for almost half of the total installed power generation capacity, a decent part of which is generally under-utilized.
Supported by strong industrial and commercial activity, peak electricity consumption has increased to 207.23 gigawatt (GW) this year. Against this, the coal-based plants alone possess an installed capacity of 204.08 GW as on September, 2022.
In fact, lack of capacity addition helped the coal plants attain a plant load factor of 64.46% in April-September, 2022 as against 57.74% in April-September, 2021. Overall, power generation by the coal-based plants jumped 12% y-o-y to 574.2 billion units in the six-month period of FY23.
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