New Delhi, Apr 19 (PTI) Amid talk of a looming power crisis due to insufficient domestic coal stocks, the Ministry of Power has favoured passing on to consumers the cost of generating electricity using high-priced imported coal.

The move will help augment power availability as imported coal-based units, such as that of Adani group, Tata Power and Essar, would be able to generate electricity and sell to state distribution companies.

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Earlier this month, in a high-level meeting chaired by Power Minister R K Singh, there was consensus on passing through the higher cost of imported coal to consumers, covering units like Essar's 1,200-MW Salaya plant and Adani's 1,980-MW plant at Mundra.

Talking to PTI, Union Power Secretary Alok Kumar confirmed that there was consensus on passing through the higher cost of the imported dry fuel to consumers for certain imported coal-based power plants till December 2022.

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He stated that there was unanimity on the view that if the imported coal-based power plants would not run to full capacity, then there would be pressure on domestic coal-based units due to rising demand of electricity.

He said now the states, utilities and discoms would have to take it forward and run those plants, and it is up to them to approach their respective regulators like Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) or state regulators for the purpose.

The imported coal-based power plants were nearly out of action at the time of the last power crisis in 2021.

Demand for power has shot up as temperatures have soared across many parts of the country with the early onset of summer. The peak power demand is near last year's all-time high of 200 gigawatts (GW) and the coal stocks position at power plants is not adequate.

During the meeting, it was estimated that the peak power demand may touch 210 GW in April itself.

The peak power demand met or the highest supply in a day was recorded at 200.57 GW on July 7, 2021.

According to the daily report of the Power System Operation Corporation Ltd for Monday, the peak power demand met across the country was 195.69 GW while peak shortage was 3,948 MW.

According to the latest daily coal stock report of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the actual coal stock at 173 thermal plants with total generation capacity of 202.68 GW was 34 per cent of the normative level of 66,720.4 thousand tonnes as on April 17, 2022.

The actual total stock at these 173 plants monitored by the CEA was 22,796.7 thousand tonnes.

The proportion of actual coal stocks against normative level at 155 non-pit plants with total generation capacity 163.46 GW was even lower at 27 per cent. The total coal stock at these plants stood at 15,375 thousand tonnes against a normative level of 57,424 thousand tonnes.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)