Wednesday 18 April 2012

Critical power shortages looming in India


India to face critical power shortage this summer: Reports
India this year is expected to face a critical shortage of 21,000 megawatts of electricity as the mercury rises higher in the coming summer months.


16 April, 2012

According to a CNN-IBN report, the Central Electricity Authority has warned that Delhi's Rajghat plant, Haryana's Mahatma Gandhi plant, Uttar Pradesh's Dadri plant and Maharashtra's Parli plant have coal only for two or three more days. In Karnataka, the two functional thermal plants at Raichur and Bellary have coal for just three days.

The Authority further said 25 power stations have coal left for just about four days to fuel the power plants and a little more than 30 stations have just seven days of stock left.

The situation is alarming as even the Prime Minister's Office was on high alert recently and convened a hurried meeting to expedite the process of high import costs for coal, smoothen environment clearances for coal projects and nurse the worsening financial health of power distribution companies.

Imported coal is four times costlier than domestic coal, which costs Rs 1,000 per tonne.

Former Power Secretary Anil Razdan said, "Two days of coal stock is a very critical situation, ideally a plant should have at least 10 days of stock. This problem has resulted from disturbance of coal's supply chain."

Director General of Association of Power Producers Ashok Khurana said approximately 28,000 megawatts of power plant were working at below 50 per cent. The balance between the production, dispatch and the coal available at the power stations is very delicate and so slight disruptions, which take place during rains, affects the entire power schedule over there."

Coal India, which supplies coal to 80 percent of India's power plants itself has a shortage of 142 million tonnes, and the reason for this shortage is partly a lack of transport for coal. Imported coal is four times costlier than domestic coal, which is Rs 1,000 per tonne.

BSES Yamuna Power CEO Ramesh Narayanan in a statement blamed the distribution side, and the entire funding by the financial institutions which is done on the balance sheet. "And unfortunately, all the 'Discoms' in the country are in deep trouble which did not have a strong balance sheet," he said.

Power shortage and infrastructure are major concerns of a populous fast developing nation that is expects to attract large foreign investments.

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