Power plants not lifting coal, contractual supply steady, says government report

27th aug 2018

Power plants not lifting coal, contractual supply steady, says government report

Power plants which are shut due to coal shortage are themselves responsible for low fuel stocks as Coal India (CIL) has already supplied contracted quantities to these generation units, the coal ministry said on Friday.

As per the latest government data, the outage at 8,980 MW of coal-based power generation capacity has been attributed to the shortage of fuel.

According to the latest report of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA)’s operation performance monitoring division, 1,780 MW capacity was offline in West Bengal, followed by 1,700 MW in Gujarat and 1,640 MW in Andhra Pradesh as on August 22.

The coal ministry said though 880 MW is shut at the Mejia thermal power station in West Bengal, CIL has supplied 136% of contracted quantity of fuel to the plant. The 600 MW unit of the Raghunathpur plant, also in Bengal, is shut due to coal shortage.

The coal ministry said the DVC, operator of the plant, was unable to lift to the full extent the coal sent via road even as it is located closer to coal mines.

Source: FINANCIAL EXPRESS