Electricity produced by thermal power plants in February 2019 recorded a drop of 1.9% year-on-year (y-o-y), consequentially pushing utilisation levels of these generating stations down. Coal- and gas-based power plants across the country produced 81.2 billion units (BU) of electricity in February, making it the second straight month when electricity generated from these sources was lower than the corresponding period last year. The plant load factor (PLF) of thermal power plants across sectors fell 1.8 percentage points in February to 60.5%.
Utilisation levels of private thermal power generators — already distressed due to lack of adequate demand and coal supply issues — remained unchanged y-o-y at a meagre 52.7% in February, keeping their debt-servicing capabilities suppressed.
Thermal plants owned by the states saw their PLF levels fall 3.9 percentage points y-o-y to 56.9% in the same period. Central government-owned plants’ average PLF dropped 1.4 percentage points to 74.7%.
