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Coal-fired power plants, long an increasingly money-losing proposition in the US, are becoming more valuable now that the suddenly strong demand for electricity to run Big Tech's cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications has set off a full-on sprint to find new energy sources. President Donald Trump who has pushed for US energy dominance in the global market and suggested that coal can help meet surging power demand is wielding his emergency authority to entice utilities to keep older coal-fired plants online and producing electricity. While some utilities were already delaying the retirement of coal-fired plants, the scores of coal-fired plants that have been shut down the past couple years or will be shut down in the next couple years are the object of growing interest from tech companies, venture capitalists, states and others competing for electricity. That's because they have a very attractive quality: high-voltage lines connecting to the electricity grid tha
The domestic coal-based power generation increased by 8.8 per cent to 686.7 billion units (BU) in the April-October period of the current financial year. The domestic coal-based power generation stood at 630.7 BU in the year-ago period. Coal-based power generation (both domestic and imported coal) went up by 11.16 per cent during the April-October period of the current fiscal year, as compared to the corresponding period of the previous financial year. The rise has been on account of an unprecedented rise in temperature, delayed monsoon in the northern region of the country coupled with the resumption of full commercial activities post-Covid, the coal ministry said in a statement. Despite the escalating power demand, coal import for blending has dropped by 46.57 per cent to 13.57 (MT) up to October 2023, from 25.4 MT in the corresponding period of previous year. The government persists in its efforts to further enhance coal production, aiming to increase availability and reduce ..
The proposed new coal-based power plants totalling 27 GW could "jeopardise" India's target of 450GW renewable energy by 2030, says a report by Ember and Climate Risk Horizons. As per the report, 27 GW of pre-permit and permitted new coal power plant proposals in India are now "superfluous to its electricity requirements". "These coal project proposals could jeopardise the achievement of India's widely-praised RE target of 450 GW by 2030," it said. It said these surplus "zombie" plants - assets that would be neither dead nor alive - would require Rs 247,421 crore (USD 33 billion) of investment, and yet are projected to lie idle or operate at uneconomic capacity factors due to surplus generation capacity in the system. "As India recovers from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, how the country uses scarce public resources will be absolutely crucial. By avoiding these unnecessary 'zombie' coal plants, India can not only save lakhs of crores of rupees, but also lower power