India is facing a coal shortage crisis in its power generation plants, with half of the country's coal power fleet facing critical inventory levels. This information has been released by responsible officials and official statistics, indicating that electricity demand has sharply increased due to warmer-than-usual weather this season.
Status of Coal Power Plants
According to published data, 96 coal power plants in India have coal supplies for only the next three days. This number has increased from 60 plants that were facing critical inventory levels in mid-September. Since the beginning of October, the total coal inventory in power plants has also decreased by 5 percent. Last month, coal-fired electricity generation saw a 13.3 percent increase, but this increase was insufficient to bridge the gap between supply and demand, which reached 560 million kilowatt-hours in September. This gap is the highest level of imbalance since August 2023.
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Coal Supply and Increasing Demand
In response to the decrease in coal inventory last month, the Ministry of Coal of India announced that domestic coal companies have increased coal supply for coal power plants. However, the latest updates indicate that this supply has not been sufficient and has failed to balance demand and supply. Daily electricity demand in India has reached peaks this year that are 45 to 50 gigawatts higher than last year. Additionally, due to disruptions in oil and gas supply in the Strait of Hormuz, India expects its total coal demand to rise to 1.353 billion tons this year, indicating a return to an upward trend after a slight decrease last year. According to reports from the International Energy Agency, this increase is due to the growing energy needs in India.
Despite the rapid construction of solar energy, this trend has not been efficient due to the lack of integration of these facilities with battery storage, and electricity generation is heavily dependent on weather conditions, failing to cover demand fluctuations.
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