Effective Power Management Amid Coal Crisis in India

Effective and integrated power management is the need of the hour to keep the furnaces burning and steam turbines running inside our power plants.

The thermal power plants of India are facing an acute coal crunch since the renewal of the pandemic last year and it got even worse last week.

Most of the major power plants don’t have enough coal in stock to meet three days of generation as of now. In a country like India, where 75% of power demand is met by thermal power plants, this situation – without a doubt – creates a tough situation for the power ministry and ripples among industry customers as well.

The impact of climatic change we are witnessing these days in the form of local heatwaves and extraordinary hot climate that led to increased power consumption not only in domestic customers but in factories and co-work spaces as well. The country cannot tolerate this power crisis or the fear of its occurrence as it adversely impacts the positive economic growth we had already achieved during the last financial year.

Efforts towards recovery for a shining future

However, this pandemic situation and subsequent low demand had brought the power consumption to a new low which in turn impacted the smooth functioning of coal mines which cut short their daily production to meet the lowered demand.

The coal linkage of power plants is well designed in advance through long-term coal linkage and the plant fluctuations are maintained through the short-term linkage mechanism.

Even though the reduced mining and power plant activity worked towards lowering emissions, the ramping up of these processes needs some extra effort and time as coal mining, transportation and handling can only be enhanced in a phased manner once lowered below the operational range. This is assumed as the root cause of the coal crisis faced by the Indian Power sector nowadays.

Efficient power management capable of overseeing and dealing with these situations months before they occur is the heart of any power sector. The policymakers and administration must put some extra effort to develop a generation of power management experts with some specialized credentials like the MBA in Power Management from UPES CCE to deal with this power chaos and thus lead India towards power security.