'Operate at full capacity': Centre tells imported coal power plants
Strap: The demand for power has gone up by almost 20 percent in energy terms. The supply of domestic coal has increased but the increase in the supply is not sufficient to meet the increased demand for power, said the Central government in official order.
Coal Crisis India: The Centre has asked all imported coal plants to operate at full capacity, owing to the 20 percent rise in demand for power. "Looking at the emergency situation, the Union Ministry directed all States and all generating companies based on domestic coal to import at least 10 percent of their requirement of coal for blending," reported news agency ANI.
As per the reports, in an official order, the ministry said: "The demand for power has gone up by almost 20 percent in energy terms. The supply of domestic coal has increased but the increase in the supply is not sufficient to meet the increased demand for power. This is leading to load shedding in different areas. Because of the mismatch between the daily consumption of coal for power generation and the daily receipt of coal at the power plant, the stocks of coal at the power plant have been declining at a worrisome rate."
Union Minister of Coal & Mines, Pralhad Joshi said: "Launched 20 closed and discontinued mines on revenue sharing for re-operationalisation. These mines have an estimated reserve of 380 MT and will help us further increase coal supply to TPPs while creating employment opportunities for locals,"
"The international price of coal has gone up in an unprecedented fashion. It is currently around 140 US Dollars per tonne. As a result of this, the import of coal for blending, which was of the order of 37 Million Tonnes in 2015-16 has gone down, leading to more pressure on domestic coal. The imported coal-based generation capacity is around 17,600MW. The PPAS for imported coal-based plants does not have adequate provision for pass-through of the entire increase in the international coal price. At the present price of imported coal, running of imported coal-based plants and supply of power at the PPA rates will lead to huge losses to the generators and therefore the generators were not willing to run those plants," it read.
(With inputs from agencies)
Also Read: Coal crisis: Finally, some good news! Amid power crisis, Coal India production increases by over 27%