If India’s power sector has seen a spate of loan defaults and insolvencies in recent years on ambitious demand projections going awry, the current financial year has witnessed the lowest rate of addition in net generation capacity in at least the past two decades (see chart). According to data reviewed by FE, the capacity addition on a net basis — the difference between the plants commissioned and retired — stood at 6,160 MW at February-end, a meagre 1.8% increase from the level of installed capacity at the start of the fiscal.
In the thermal power sector, the capacity added in the first 11 months of this fiscal has been a minuscule 21 MW, a sharp fall from the 1,227 MW in the same period in FY18. Given that no major unit is scheduled to be commissioned in March, clearly the annual capacity increase this year would be one of the lowest in history.
