Coal crunch: 64 power plants left with less than 4 days of dry fuel stocks

Ahead of the festival season, coal supply crisis seems to be deepening as 64 non-pithead power plants are left with less than four days of the dry fuel stocks.

The latest report on coal stocks for power plants from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) also showed that 25 such power plants had coal stocks for less than seven days as on October 3.

As many as 64 non-pithead thermal power plants had less than four days of stocks of the dry fuel.

The CEA monitors coal stocks at 135 power plants that have a cumulative generation capacity of 165 GW on a daily basis.

Overall, total coal stocks of 78,09,200 tonnes were available at the 135 plants as on October 3 and that was sufficient for four days.

The daily coal requirement of the 135 power plants with 165 GW of installed capacity is 18,24,100 tonnes.

Among the 135 plants, not even a single one had eight or more days of coal stocks.

According to the report, there were seven non-pithead plants (where the coal mine is more than 1,500 kilometres away) which had less than five days of coal (super critical) while one such plant had less than nine days of stocks of dry fuel (critical).

Among the pithead power plants, three had less than three days of coal (supercritical) while seven had less than five days of stocks of dry fuel (critical).

The report also showed that 17 plants -- with cumulative installed power generation capacity of 21,325 MW -- had zero coal stocks while 20 power plants of 22,550 MW capacity had one day of the dry fuel stocks.

As many 20 power plants with a total generation capacity of 29,960 MW had two days of coal stocks while 19 power plants, with total generation capacity of 22,000 MW, had three days of the dry fuel stocks, as per the report.

The report showed that there were 15 power plants, with cumulative generation capacity of 16,890 MW, which had four days of coal stocks. Six power plants, having 7,174 MW generation capacity, had dry fuel stocks for five days.

Nine power plants with 9,360 MW total generation capacity had coal stocks for six days while one power plant of 2,270 MW generation capacity had dry fuel stocks for seven days.

Power Minister R K Singh had reportedly termed the coal shortage as way beyond normal.