The country’s thermal power plants are struggling with critically low supplies of coal, as power demand has recovered faster than expected. Fifteen thermal power plants, with a generation capacity of 15,385 MW, had zero days of coal stock on hand as of September 30, according to the data released by the Power Ministry.
As many as 104 thermal plants, with capacity of 126.8 GW of the total 135 thermal power plants in the country, are currently classified as having “critical” or “super critical” levels of coals stock for up to a week. A total of 72 plants with a capacity 89.5 GW have coal stocks of three days or less against the government’s guidelines of stocks for 14 days.