NTPC's Dadri, Unchahar plants running at 100% capacity amid power crisis

State-run power giant NTPC on Friday said that almost all units of its Unchahar and Dadri power plants are running at 100 per cent capacity.

The statement assumes importance amid the ongoing power crisis when thermal plant are dealing with coal shortages and state utilities are opting for load shedding or power cuts to deal with the situation.

"Currently, Unchahar and Dadri stations are declaring more than 100 per cent rated capacity to the grid. All units of Unchahar and Dadri are running at full load, except Unchahar Unit-1 which is under annual planned overhaul," NTPC tweeted on Friday.

The company also said in another tweet that all six units of Dadri and five units of Unchahar are running at full capacity and receiving regular coal supplies. Present stock at both the plants are 1,40,000 MT and 95,000 MT, respectively and imported coal supplies are also in pipeline, it said.

According to the latest report, the coal stock is 24 per cent of the normative level at 147 non-pithead thermal power plants, monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), with total capacity of over 163 GW on April 27, 2022.

The CEA report showed that these 147 plants had 13,912 thousand tonnes of coal against the normative level of 57,033 thousand tonnes on April 27, 2022.

These 147 non-pithead plants had 25 per cent of the normative coal stocks on April 26. These plants had 14,172 thousand tonnes of coal against the norm of 57,033 thousand tonnes on April 26.

Thus, the data shows the coal stock situation has not improved especially when the demand is increasing.

India's peak power demand met or the highest supply in a day touched the all-time high of 204.65 GW on Thursday amid ongoing heatwave.

On Tuesday, the country's maximum power demand met or the highest supply in a day was at the record level of 201.06 GW. The peak power supply had surpassed last year's maximum demand of 200.53 GW on July 7, 2021.

However, the power demand surpassed the supply as there was a deficit of 8.22 GW on Tuesday, according to the data of national grid operator Power System Operation Corporation.

Similarly, there was unmet power demand of 10.29 GW on Wednesday even as the highest supply on that day was at 200.65 GW.

The demand for power is expected to rise further in coming days as the weather department has predicted that heatwave sweeping through the country will intensify.

In March this year, the growth in energy demand has been around 8.9 per cent as per power ministry statement issued earlier this week.

Further, the demand is expected to reach about 215-220 GW in May-June, the ministry had said.