Outage alert

Improving domestic coal availability and ensuring better management of projects that use imported coal are crucial in resolving the ongoing power crisis

- NACHIKET KELKAR

MANISH KHEDEKAR is a software developer in Mumbai. With work from home still continuing, he made a trip to his village in the Konkan region of Maharashtra, hoping to spend some time with his family. But a crippling 12-hour power cut in the sweltering heat in his coastal village has made him think of returning quickly to Mumbai.

Across India, especially in the country’s vast hinterlands, power cuts are not uncommon. This time around, hotter-than-normal weather in several states has led to a surge in demand for electricity, which power generation companies are barely able to keep up with.

A shortage of coal available at power plants is a major reason behind this situation. The Maharashtra State Power Generation Company (Mahagenco) has a coal-based power generation capacity of 9,330MW. According to Shailendra Dubey, chairman of the All India Power Engineers Federation, Mahagenco’s daily coal requirement—for the full load generation, with 85 per cent plant load factor—is 1.35 to 1.40 lakh metric tonnes. Typically, each power plant must have coal stocks of around 22-25 days. But, as on April 22, coal stocks at Mahagenco’s various power plants were sufficient for just about two to six days.

Maharashtra is not alone. Over the past five years, average coal stock at power plants was at around 17 days. This time though, the comparable figure is just around nine days.

Thermal power plants still account for 75 per cent of electricity generation in the country. With domestic coal supply affected and price of imported coal going up because of the war in Ukraine, power generation is facing a major challenge, at a time when demand has jumped because of the unprecedented heatwave conditions.