Coal supply improves at 61 thermal plant units with less than 4-day stock

Coal shortage at thermal power projects is still continuing as number of non-pit head projects having less than four days of coal (supercritical stock) rose to 61 on Tuesday from 58 on Monday, official data showed.

According to the latest coal stock data of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the number of non-pit head projects having less than four days of coal was 61 on October 19 and 58 on October 18.

The data showed that the number of plants with supercritical stock was 65 last week (on October 12). Thus, the coal stock situation has improved eventually but the crisis is still continuing.

The improvement as well as a little deterioration in the coal stock situation assumes significance in view of the ongoing shortage of the dry fuel at thermal power plants in the country.

The Central Electricity Authority monitors coal stock situation of 135 thermal power plants with cumulative generation capacity of over 165 GW.

The data also showed that the number of power plants with zero days of coal has come down to 15 as of Tuesday with cumulative installed generation capacity of 15,080MW, compared to 18 with 18,630 MW capacity a week back.

The number of the plants with one day of coal stock has increased to 22 with 29,640 MW capacity as of October 19, compared to 26 with 34,140 MW capacity on October 12. The number of plants with two days of coal increased to 19 (with 25,445 MW capacity) from 17 (19,245 MW) a week ago.

The number of plants with three days of coal stood at 18 (with 22,594 MW capacity) as against 18 (25,224 MW) a week ago.

The number of plants with four days of coal has decreased to 15 with 18,130 MW capacity as of Tuesday, from 19 with 23,080 MW capacity a week ago, showing improvement in dry fuel stock.

The number of plants with five days of coal stood at 10 (11,495 MW capacity) as against 10 (8905 MW) a week ago.

The power ministry data also showed improvement in the power shortage situation as it came down to 4,161 MW on October 19 from 5,591 MW a week back (on October 12).

As per experts, power demand would further moderate with the onset of winter.

They opined that the coal stock situation at power plants would further improve in coming days with government's efforts to scale up supplies.

Earlier last week, the power ministry had stated that the capacity of units under outage due to low coal stocks reduced from 11 GW on October 12 to 5 GW on October 14.