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Govt asks power plants to increase generation to build coal inventories

KOLKATA: The government has asked state-run power plants holding large fuel stocks to increase generation to allow others to run at a lower capacity and build inventories before the festive season.

At present, 117 power plants with supply agreements with Coal India have a cumulative stock of 15.2 million tonnes, enough to generate power for 10 days but 14 of them don’t have enough coal to run the plant for one day.

Coal India executives attribute the coal scarcity to problems in distribution that leads to a surplus or scarcity in different plants.

To solve the issue, the government has identified 24 centre- and staterun plants running at low capacity, yet holding stocks of 16 to 42 days. “Out of the 24 plants identified, 19 have been running at capacity utilisations lower than 75%. Generation from these plants can be easily scaled up,” a state government official told ET.

A Coal India executive said most plants with surplus stocks were pithead plants, which can easily be supplied more coal as they raise generation.

He said NTPC’s pit head plants at Rihand, Singrauli and Vindhyachal are running at 92%, 63% and 86% respectively, and hold 10 lakh, 7 lakh and 17 lakh tonnes of coal. Additional power from these plants can be sent to regions with higher demand, while those with scanty stocks can be scaled down.

Coal India will keep supplying coal to the non-pithead plants even if they scale down generation to help them build stocks to meet festive season demand.

A power company is free to divert coal from one of its plants to another provided the total receipt of coal remains the same and generating companies like NTPC, Damodar Valley Corporation and state-run generators are being roped in.