Union Power Secretary confident of no coal shortage in power plants this festive season

16 Sep 2022 , 07:15 AM

According to Union Power Secretary Alok Kumar, India won’t have a power shortfall this festive season due to a lack of coal at thermal plants because 20 million tonnes of coal have already been imported.

Around this time last year, the nation had a power crisis caused by a lack of coal at thermal facilities. The Centre responded by taking a variety of steps to increase supply and handle the issue in 2021.

“It (the power crisis brought on by a lack of coal) won’t occur this time (during festival season). This fiscal year, we have consumed 15 million tonnes of the 20 million tonnes of coal we have already imported “On the side-lines of the INSIGHT2022 conference on green mobility, Kumar spoke with the media.

In the final week of September 2022, Navratri will begin, signalling the start of the festival season, notably in North India.

He responded that coal will be imported whenever necessary when asked if India would be importing additional coal.

Regarding any specific intention to import more coal, he said there was always a fallback option in case something unexpected happened.

Kumar also discussed the infrastructure for charging electric vehicles and the government’s support of them.

He clarified that upstream infrastructure, like transformers, is installed by discoms or utilities to supply electricity to EV charging stations, which costs about Rs5—6 lakh.

At the moment, the businesses installing EV charging stations are obligated to pay for this upstream infrastructure.

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