New Delhi: Low coal stock at several generation units is a problem of their own making as they ignored warnings against reducing offtake from Coal India Ltd (CIL) during periods of subdued powerdemand.
In a note issued on Wednesday, CIL cautioned power producers against repeating the mistake by reducing coal intake during the monsoon. Instead, the company has advised using this period to build up coal stocks for the time when power demand perks up after the rains.
The perspective for the advisory may be seen in power minister RK Singh's statement at the state power ministers' conference in Shimla on Tuesday. Singh told his counterparts from states they were free to import coal as shortage is persisting in spite of increased supply and may continue till CIL received permission for new mines.'
On the ground, however, facts indicate that complaints of coal shortage to the power ministry by generators may not be widespread. Thermal power stations operated beyond their targets to bridge supply gap left by hydel units, which saw generation dropping to 88 per cent of estimates as reservoirs. Some power plants ran at 103 per cent of their scheduled production target in April-May period.
The Central Electricity Authority's report reflects the number of power stations facing 'critical' coal stock coming down from 30 on April 1 to 13 on July 2 as CIL and the Railways jointly worked to ramp up additional supplies.
Overall, thermal generation grew 5.6 per cent in the first quarter, with India's largest generator NTPC clocking a 7.5 per cent rise in output. Simultaneously, CIL's supplies to power plants also rose over 15 per cent. All this would not have been possible in case of widespread coal shortage.
What has happened is that power stations are facing critical stocks because they reduced intake of coal due to subdued power demand during 2016-17 and started consuming their inventory to cope with the spurt in demand for thermal power generation in 2017-18. They did this without realising that once railway rakes are allotted to other industries, it is difficult to organise them for rushing coal to power plants spread across the country at short notice so that they can meet CEA norms on stocks.
“For months we have been begging power producers to take coal as our pithead stocks kept mounted… There is enough coal. No plant will have to suffer on account of coal shortage,” a top CIL executive told TOI, admitting that there were some plants that may be facing critical stocks due to a combination of several factors.