19 thermal power plants with 23 GW capacity have less than 3-days of coal
Bhubaneswar: As many as 35 thermal power plants of 46,230 MW (46.23 GW) combined capacity had coal stock for less than seven days, reflecting shortage of dry fuel as on 4th May , according to the daily stock data of Central Electricity Authority (CEA).
Out of the 35 power plants, 19 plants of combined capacity of 23530 MW are facing super-critical coal stock and even 2 plants have 0 days of coal stock. On the other hand, 5 plants have 4 days of stock, 8 plants have 5 days of stock and 3 plants have 6 days of coal stock.
A power plant is said to be facing critical coal stock situation if it has fuel for less than seven days and termed supercritical if it has fuel for less than four days.
However, CEA in its report said that out of the 135 plants of 1,66,406 MW capacity, non is facing critical coal stock situation and the average coal stock in these plants are of 12 days.
Explaining this, the Agency said that Power Plants having less coal stock due to outstanding dues/ supply more than committed quantity/ not lifting offered coal/Bridge linkage/New Linkage are not shown as having critical /supercritical coal stock.
India has installed power generation capacity of 382 GW which includes 209 GW coal-based power generation capacity, 24.9 GW gas based power, 46GW hydro power, 6.7 GW nuclear power and around 93 GW of renewables (solar, wind) as on March 31, 2021.