Coal demand rose significantly this year: Railway board chief amid power crisis
PremiumThis comes amid continued and increasing temperatures gripping the country and thereby leading to an increase in demand for electricity
The demand and consumption of coal this year have increased significantly as compared to 2021, said VK Tripathi, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the railway board.
“Demand and consumption for coal have gone up significantly in comparison to last year. So, we are transporting coal in higher quantities. We are operating extra coal rakes and on a higher priority than Mail and Express trains," said Tripathi on Sunday.
"We can say there is a 20% rise in the demand and consumption of coal from last year. In the month of April 2022, we have transported 15% more coal than we did in April 2021," he added.
Tripathi's remarks came amid continued and increasing temperatures gripping the country and thereby leading to an increase in demand for electricity.
The peak power shortage rose swiftly this week from a single digit of 5.24 GW on Monday to touch a double digit of 10.77 GW on Thursday showing the effects of various factors like low coal stocks at generation plants.
On the other hand, the peak power supply touched record levels thrice this week.
The peak power supply touched a record 201.65GW on Tuesday. This had surpassed last year’s maximum demand met of 200.53 GW on 7 July 2021.
The peak supply was again at a record level of 204.65GW on Thursday and touched an all-time high of 207.11GW on Friday. It was 200.65GW on Wednesday.
The peak power supply was 199.34 GW at the beginning of this week on Monday.
The central government had said that the electricity demand is expected to reach about 215-220 GW in May-June 2022.
Coal India Limited has also reported an increase of 27.2% in its output in April 2022, as compared to the year-ago period, said the ministry of coal on Friday.
The latest data shows that the coal stocks at the 147 non-pithead thermal plants with a total capacity of over 164GW monitored by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) was 24% of the normative level on 28 April 2022.
The coal stock on Thursday at these plants was 13,755 thousand tonnes against the norm of 57,236 thousand tonnes.
In view of this, several states of India continue to reel from power outages.
With inputs from agencies.