India is facing a looming power crisis, as stocks of coal in power plants have fallen to unprecedentedly low levels and states are warning of power blackouts.
States across India have issued warnings that coal supplies to thermal power plants, which convert heat from coal to electricity, are running perilously low.
Data from the Central Electricity Authority of India show that nearly 80 percent of the country’s coal-fired plants were in the critical, or “supercritical” stage, meaning their stocks could run out in fewer than five days.
Photo: Reuters
Over the weekend, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that the capital “could face a blackout” if power stations did not receive more coal.
States including Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Bihar have been experiencing power cuts lasting up to 14 hours.
Maharashtra shut down 13 thermal power plants and urged people to use electricity sparingly, while in Punjab three power plants halted production.
Scheduled cuts introduced in Punjab, lasting up to six hours at a time, have prompted protests.
Some experts have said that the power issues are not due to a shortage of domestic coal production, as some have reported.
Over the past two decades, domestic coal production in India has continued to rise exponentially, although there was a minor dip in production of less than 1 percent from 2019 to last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Energy providers and India’s state-owned coal producer, Coal India, have instead been accused of failing to stockpile sufficient amounts to meet the predicted rise in demand.
“The current crisis is not manifested by shortage of coal mining capacity, but instead it is caused due to improper foresight, planning and stocking of coal by power generators and energy regulator in the country,” said Sunil Dahiya, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
This year’s heavy monsoon rains have also been blamed for affecting domestic coal mining due to flooding and impeding the dispatch of coal from the mines.
While this is no different from every year, more coal is usually imported to bridge the gap in production.
However, due to a global energy crisis, which has seen international prices hit record highs, it has been more of a financial challenge to import more coal, leading to greater shortages than usual.
Vibhuti Garg, lead India economist for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said that there had been a significant growth in electricity demand recently, as India had re-emerged from pandemic lockdowns, but added that this had been anticipated months ago, so should not have taken power companies by surprise.
“Various stakeholders are to be blamed for the situation,” said Garg, who described the situation as “scary, but likely to get better soon.”
“Developers were playing safe, thinking that there was a high chance of another COVID wave hitting around this time of the year, which would suppress demand,” she said. “So they didn’t do enough to stock coal at their end. So, while there was availability of coal in the last few months, developers were not maintaining enough stock at their end, leading to a crisis situation now.”
Garg said that over the past year “renewable energy installation also slowed down” and that if the Indian government had focused on increasing the capacity of sources of renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydro, “the increased demand could have been met through renewable energy and this crisis could have been averted.”
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