Coal shortage at DCB power plants surpasses 8 mt in FY24.

The gap between coal receipt and consumption, including imported stocks, till September 17 in FY24 at domestic coal based (DCB) power plants surpassed 8 million tonnes (mt).

Between September 1 to 17, India’s peak demand met averaged at more than 215 gigawatts (GWs) with an average peak shortage of 1.87 GW and an average generation outage of 43.90 GW.

As per sources, the average consumption at DCB plants in the current month till September 17 stood at 2.31 mt per day against an average daily receipt of 2.02 mt. The gap without imported coal stocks averaged at 2.9 lakh tonne (lt) a day, while that with the imported commodity was 2 lt .

“Power plants were directed to keep importing coal and had the same not been done, it could have led to more depletion in coal stocks since December 2022. However, the situation is not as bad as last year,” said one of the sources.

Overall, till September 17, DCB plants consumed 39.3 mt of coal, while cumulative receipts stood at 34.4 mt. DCB plants consumed 1.5 mt of coal during the period. The gap without imported coal was 4.9 mt, while with foreign stocks it stood at 3.3 mt.

In FY24 till September 17, the cumulative consumption and receipt of coal stood at 380.1 mt and 356.1 mt, respectively. The gap without imported coal stood at 23.9 mt, whereas with foreign stocks it was 15.8 mt. The gap between consumption and receipt of coal, including imported stocks, was 8.1 mt.

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has also released a report on the daily consumption and receipt at DCB plants till September 20, which requires clarifications. businessline has reached out to the Power Ministry for a clarification on the parameters related to gap met by draw down from reserve coal stock and gap without imported coal.

HBL