Admitting that emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from thermal power plants in India was higher than global standards, government today said it was due to inferior quality of coal and its higher consumption.
Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha on the issue, Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said renovation, modernisation and life extension of old thermal power generating units and retirement of old and inefficient thermal generation units has been undertaken in a phased manner.
"The CO2 emission from thermal power plants in the country is comparatively higher than the global standards due to inferior quality of coal and higher ambient air temperature and cooling water temperature in India, resulting in more consumption of coal," he said.
The Minister said "a total of 3,115 MW has already been retired till date; another 2,667 MW will be retired by the end of the 12th Plan. Obviously, this is a process which takes several years. We have now come out with a new policy, and in the near future, we shall go in for a massive re-substitution programme," claiming that the policy has been widely hailed.
Maintaining that public sector units owning old plants, the Minister said "all the owners of these old plants have been asked to give their specific programmes to either replace them or go in for renovation and modernisation. Already some 2,500 MW - I have the exact figure-has been replaced."
Goyal said one of the first steps the government took was to lay out a policy for completely rehabilitating and changing over the old plants to new ones of supercritical technology.
He said one of the constraints for changeover from old technology to new had been that the coal linkages were given for a particular plant only and were not allowed to be enhanced or changed and the old plants were not able to go in for new technology.
