The government is reportedly planning to unveil new rules for the supply of coal and its storage in thermal power plants to avoid a demand-supply mismatch. The ministries of coal and power have jointly decided to prepare a monthly coal supply schedule for thermal power units so that all power units have a stock of at least 40-million tonne (mt) by the end of March.
According to a report in the Business Standard which cited unidentified executives as saying that the thermal power units have coal reserves of about 7.3 mt, at present. State-owned Coal India Limited (CIL), the largest producer, has raised the supply and has set a target of supplying around 3 mt by the end of this month.
It is important to note that coal stocks are low at power projects because of an unprecedented rise in power demand with India’s economic revival after the disruptions caused by the outbreak of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. At present, 17 gigawatt (GW) of power generation capacity has zero days of coal stock and 21 GW has less than four days of coal.
Alok Kumar, Secretary in the Ministry of Power, told the financial daily that they held talks with the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to revise coal storage norms for thermal power plants and calculate them according to the required demand of power.
CEA, the technical arm of the Ministry of Power, gathers the data of coal reserves on the basis of how many days of stocks are left in a power generating unit. Kumar said this does not lead to a proper synergy as it can be assumed to be low in periods of high.
Kumar went on add that as per calculations, coal stock with thermal power plants should have 40 mt by the end of March, which is the beginning of high power consumption months followed by monsoon months when coal supply is less.
Kumar said he has conveyed to the Coal Ministry about this with data on how much coal should be sent to power plants every month to create 40 mt of reserves, mentioning that the ministry has assured that the supply of coal will be sufficient by October-end. The current daily demand of the power sector is 1.7 mt, of which 1.3 mt is supplied by Coal India.
“Now that the rains have subsided in eastern and central India, it will help in raising the coal despatch. We will fully meet the increased power demand. In the next few days, coal stocks at thermal power plants will start building up,” the daily quoted AK Jain, Secretary, Ministry of Coal, as saying.
