Unnecessary coal plants could waste India’s Rs 247,421 cr, says report
A total of 27 GW of pre-permit and permitted new coal power plant proposals in India are now superfluous to its electricity requirements. These coal project proposals could jeopardise the achievement of India’s widely-praised renewable energy target of 450 GW by 2030, a new report said on Tuesday.
These surplus ‘zombie’ plants, assets that would be neither dead nor alive, would require Rs 247,421 crore ($33 billion) of investment, yet are projected to lie idle or operate at uneconomic capacity factors due to surplus generation capacity in the system.
According to the analysis by Ember and Climate Risk Horizons, the private sector’s unnecessary investment on ‘zombie’ coal plants will be Rs 62,912 crore.
