Parts of India faced blackouts ranging up to 10 hours on Thursday and Friday, and the crisis threatened to worsen with 100 out of the 165 operational coal plants in the country running at “critical level” of stocks, according to latest government data. The crisis is the culmination of variety of factors and lays bare the precarious logistics and the strained finances of India’s power sector, where many companies have run out of money to pay for replenishments or buy from the grid, or simply did not place orders on time.
The problem has been precipitated by an unrelenting surge in power demand due to a heatwave and the post-pandemic economic recovery, and is compounded by a lack of freight train wagons to carry the coal from mines to plants. And the situation has been exacerbated by maintenance work at many plants, reducing the capacity on offer.
