If Coal India continues to fall short in supplying fuel to power plants, the electricity generation capacity addition target for the current plan period (2012-17) would have to be curtailed to 45,000 MW from the proposed 76,000 MW, says a report.
According to the report of the Working Group on Power, availability of coal as indicated by CIL would support only about 7,500 MW of CIL-linked new power generation capacity as against 38,000 required to meet the Power Ministry's proposed target of 76,000 MW during the current plan period.
In the Business As Usual (BAU) scenario, as described in the report, in order to meet the generation requirement of 76,000 MW proposed by the Ministry of Power, coal requirement works out to be around 842 million tonnes (MT).
Against the requirement of 842 MT, 54 MT coal is to be imported by thermal power stations designed on imported coal.
Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL), a subsidiary of Coal India has confirmed a coal availability of 35 MT with around 100 MT coal expected to be available from captive coal blocks.
The report said 653 MT of coal needs to be made available by Coal India.
Against the requirement of 653 MT coal, CIL have committed to supply of 415 MT which is about 75% of their total production of 556 MT.
In order to meet the shortfall of 238 MT between the demand and coal availability from CIL, power utilities are expected to import around 159 MT.
However, such a huge quantity of imported coal for blending may not be feasible as only a maximum of 15% of blending of imported coal is possible in the existing boilers, it added.
This quantity of imported coal would be in addition to 54 MT coal likely to be imported by thermal power stations designed on imported coal. Therefore, the total quantity of coal expected to be imported is about 213 MT.
The report further added that CIL should formulate a exigency plan to enhance its production to meet the requirement of the power stations.
