India plans to expand its coal power fleet to meet demand

• 4 months ago (2023-12-25)
• David Flin

Asia 850 Coal 275

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Raj Kumar Singh, India’s Power Minister, announced that due to an unexpected rise in demand, India plans to further expand its coal-fired power fleet.

The minister said in Parliament that India intends to add almost 88 GW of new capacity by 2032, a 63 per cent increase from a previous plan published in May. Coal will account for most of this expansion.

R Srikanth, professor of energy and climate at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, said: “India has no other alternative than to expand coal-based power for now. You need storage to supply round-the-clock clean energy and we neither have the scale nor the desired costs for storage technology to meet our needs.”

India’s maximum demand exceeded the power ministry’s projections of 229 GW several times in 2023. The ministry projects that peak demand in 2032 will rise to 366 GW.