Mumbai: After an hour-long disruption in power supply in Mumbai on Sunday, the state may also be staring at load shedding in the coming days due to low inventories of coal. Officials said that supply bottlenecks had affected their capacity to create a buffer stock of coal for monsoon when coal supply is affected.
The coal stocks at some thermal power stations of the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited (MahaGenco) have fallen to levels that can last a day or two. Coal-based thermal power accounts for the bulk of the power generated by MahaGenco. The state-owned electricity generation utility has an installed capacity of 13,602 MW, of which a bulk (9,540 MW) is fired by coal.
“There is a large-scale shortage of coal. We have coal stocks to last a day or half a day. If this (coal shortage) widens, the generation of electricity will fall, leading to load shedding,” said energy minister Nitin Raut.
