New Delhi, 19 October
Coal stock position in thermal power projects has further improved as the number of non-pit head projects with less than four days of coal (supercritical stock) declined from 69 to 58 on Monday, government data shows.
According to the latest coal stock data of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the number of non-pit head projects with coal less than four days stood at 58 on October 18 and 69 on October 11.
The data showed that the number of plants with supercritical stock stood at 61 this Sunday (October 17). Thus, the position of coal reserves is moving towards normalcy.
In view of the ongoing shortage of dry fuel in thermal power plants in the country, the improvement in the position of coal reserves is important.
The Central Electricity Authority monitors the coal stock position of 135 thermal power plants with a cumulative generation capacity of more than 165 GW.
The data also showed that the number of zero-day coal-fired power plants on Monday came down to 13 with a cumulative installed generation capacity of 11,710 MW, compared to 15 with 15,290 MW a week ago.
The number of plants with single day coal reserves has gone up to 28 with 34,795 MW capacity as on 18 October, while the number has increased to 27 plants with 35,360 MW capacity as on 11 October.
The number of two-day coal-fired plants dropped to 18 (with 27,490 MW of capacity) from 20 (22,755 MW) a week earlier.
The number of three-day coal-fired plants also declined to 12 (with 16,874 MW capacity) from 21 (27,014 MW) a week ago.
The number of four-day coal-fired plants has come down to 18 with 20,725 MW capacity as of Monday, from 20 with 25,840 MW capacity a week ago, showing improvement in dry fuel stocks.
The number of five-day coal plants has increased to 12 (12,840 MW capacity) from five (4,105 MW) a week ago.
The power ministry data also showed an improvement in the power shortage situation as it came down to 2,060 MW on October 18, from 6,857 MW a week ago.
Amid the coal shortage at power plants, the peak power shortfall reduced to 986 MW on 15 October, from 11,626 MW on 7 October.
The peak power shortfall of 11,626 MW on October 7 was the highest during the first half of this month.
According to experts, with the onset of autumn and heavy rains in many parts of the country, there has been a further reduction in power demand since last weekend.
He said that with the government’s efforts to increase the supply, the position of coal reserves in power plants would improve further in the coming days.
Earlier last week, the power ministry had said that the capacity of units under outage due to low coal stocks declined from 11 GW on October 12 to 5 GW on October 14.