India's Coal Non-Supply Chain Threatens 46,000 Megawatts of Power and National Blackouts

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--India's power supply is on the blackout brink--again. Following positive news about coal allocations to power stations and attempts to debottleneck the coal supply chain, it was reported that coal-fired power stations that rely on domestic supplies, with a total generating capacity of about 46,400 megawatts (MW), are operating with only three days of coal stocks. One day of disruption in the coal supply could lead to shutdowns and blackouts.

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) reported last week that up to 35 power plants are at a supercritical stage, and that is not "supercritical" in terms of thermally efficient generation. Power stations are considered to be supercritical if they have less than four days of fuel reserves available on site.

Out of the 90 coal-fired plants that rely on domestic coal supplies, 52 were at a critical stage, which indicates that they had less than seven days of coal supplies available. In Maharashtra, which was the worst hit state, only one out the 10 thermal plants had eight days of stock left. The rest had only up to three days of stock left.

In the same period last year, 49 power stations were in a critical stage and 38 were in a supercritical stage. The accepted industry operating norm in a power station is 22 days of coal stocks. The situation has deteriorated in November, even as coal supplies have appeared to be stabilizing as the monsoon season tapers.

A CEA official said that demand exceeds supply, and the supply situation was hand-to-mouth. Even pithead power stations did not have stock, he said. These include: Lanco Infratech's (Gurgaon) 1,000-MW Anpara and National Thermal Power Company's (New Delhi) 2,980-MW Sipat, 3,760-MW Vidhyachal and 2,100-MW Farraka power stations, which do not have even one day's stock.

In this somewhat unfathomable scenario, Coal India (Calcutta) has reported an 8% increase in its offtake. The state-owned company has increased coal supply year-over-year 13.1% (75.09 million tons) during the second quarter of the current fiscal year, compared to 66.39 million tons for the same period in 2011. For related information, see November 1, 2012, article -Rare Good News as Coal Supplies to Indian Power Industry on Target and August 1, 2012, article - India Faces Worst Power Outage in Nation's History.

No reasons or solutions are either available or believable to the weary public. On the day of writing this story, it was the most important Indian festival of Dewali, which is known as the "festival of light."

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