Coal dispatch by CIL to power sector rises 23% in April-November

Dispatch of coal by state-owned CIL to the power sector increased 22.5 per cent to 340 million tonne (MT) during April-November period of the ongoing fiscal year.

CIL's despatches to coal-based power plants in the year-ago period stood at 277.4 MT, the PSU said in a statement.

"At a thumb rule specific coal consumption of 0.67 Kg, that is the quantity of coal required to generate one unit of power, CIL's coal helped generate 507.46 Billion Units (BU) of power during the referred period spurring 22.5 per cent growth compared to 414.08 BU same period last year," it said.

This is higher than the growth of overall domestic coal-based generation including despatches from sources other than CIL.

As compared to pre-pandemic period of April-November 2019, the growth in power generation from CIL's coal is 16 per cent when dispatch to power plants was 292.88 MT. This translates to a generation of 437.13 BU.

"Dispelling the notion that the recent mismatch between unprecedented coal demand and supply may have affected the power output, domestic coal-based power generation at 641.87 BU in fact grew by 19.8 per cent during April-November'21 on a year-on-year comparison. Of this generation, CIL's coal accounted for 79 per cent," CIL said.

Coal-based power generation by 14 thermal plants in the country, who source their coal from overseas, fell 42.7 per cent to 30.04 BU during the period under review from 52.40 BU in the year-ago same months. The scaling down in generation was due to soaring international coal prices.

Domestic coal-based power plants had stepped in to meet the gap where CIL supplied around 20 MT of additional coal.

Coal stock at power plants is much improved now from a level of 7.24 MT on October 8 to 18.84 MT of indigenous coal on December 7. CIL played a pivotal role in this stock build up, it said.

CIL's current coal dispatch trend indicates record high supply to the power sector during the ongoing fiscal year eclipsing the previous high of 491 MT in 2018-19.