To ease supply strain on coal stocks, Railways to boost rakes

Coal-based thermal power meets about 75 per cent of the country’s requirements. Several states, including Punjab, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh, have faced power outages due to low coal inventories.

The official added the Railways was attempting to increase the rakes to 445 per day, using “all sources and all means.”

The total rakes of domestic and imported coal dispatched to power houses fell to about 380 per day in the first half of April from about 409 per day in March. The lack of adequate rakes has thus far been a key bottleneck to boosting stock levels, with officials saying that the domestic coal supply chain was not geared to meet the current demand level, given the lower supply of imported coal.

A spike in the international prices has led to a number of thermal plants, which use imported coal, stopping supply, and thereby putting increasing pressure on domestic coal-fired plants. India has about 16.7 GW of imported coal-based thermal power generation capacity, of which around 6.1 GW is currently not operational, according to government data.

Of the total 150 thermal plants, which utilise domestic coal, 89 had critically low levels of coal stock on Thursday — with a total stock of about 20.5 million tonnes, equating to about 8 days worth of coal, as against normative levels of 61.1 million tonnes, which equates to about 24 days worth of stock.

Experts said low levels of coal inventory during this period could indicate a power crisis later in the year, as stocks at power stations often fall during the monsoon season due to supply issues.

“Couple of months prior to monsoon is the period in which typically power plants accumulate coal so that when there is actual supply disruption due to rains, they have adequate coal in their stock. On the demand side, we are expecting a new system peak will happen soon due to hot weather conditions and reviving economic activities coming together, “ said Debasish Mishra, partner at Deloitte India.

“It’s possible that we may see a worse power crisis than in October 2021, given the current coal situation,” he added.

Separately, the national grid operator has called out Gujarat and Maharashtra for overdrawing power from the national grid, which could impact grid stability and potentially lead to grid failure.

A government official said Power System Operation Corporation had petitioned the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to give a show-cause notice to states that are drawing power beyond set schedules.