Indian coal power generation faces disruption

• 13 years ago (2011-10-12)
• Junior Isles

North America 1021

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India's largest power producer National Thermal power Company (NTPC) has said a severe coal shortage is hurting the performance of several of its power plants, including Dadri and Vindhyachal, resulting in a drop in electricity generation.

Estimates show coal shortages are compromising over 4000 MW of NTPC's power generation capacity.

Mining, loading and transportation of coal to power plants has also been hit due to heavy rains and labour strikes, which have affected coal production at several locations, including: Northern Coalfields Ltd (NCL), Central Coalfields, Eastern Coalfields, Mahanadi Coalfields and Singareni collieries Company (SCCL) mines.

Coal supply from these mines accounts for about 70 per cent of the company's total contracted usage.

"NTPC power stations at Dadri in National Capital Region, Singrauli and Unchahar in the north, Vindhyachal in Madhya Pradesh, Farakka and Kahalgaon in the east and Ramagundam and Simhadari in the south are affected due to coal shortage," NTPC said in a statement.

Also according to the company, the Badarpur plant is operating at reduced capacity since the temporary closure of Agra Canal has caused a water shortage.

Before the onset of monsoon season, NTPC had a coal stock of 5.3 million tonnes to meet the requirement of 13.2 of days which has “depleted drastically", the statement noted.

"Frequent bandhs [strikes] in CCL area and strike by Coal India Ltd (CIL) employees on October 10-11 and continued strike at SCCL  from September 13-20 have further aggravated the coal situation," it added.

Currently, NTPC has an installed capacity of 34 854 MW across India.