India orders over 100 captive coal plants to run at full capacity from October

On Sept 25, India’s power ministry invoked emergency provisions of the Electricity Act to require all captive coal-fired power stations of 50 MW or more to run at full capacity from Oct 1 until the end of the year. The order covers 112 facilities belonging to firms such as Vedanta, Tata Steel, Hindalco Industries, JSW Steel, UltraTech Cement, Reliance Industries, Indian Oil, Bharat Aluminium, Hindustan Zinc and Nayara Energy.

Officials cite an expected surge in electricity demand and note that nearly 40% of coal plants are operating with critically low fuel stocks due to hotter temperatures from the El Niño phenomenon. The ministry also mandated weekly reporting to the Central Electricity Authority on generation, captive consumption, power sales, available capacity and coal inventories. In addition, an earlier emergency directive for Tata Power’s imported-coal plant in Mundra, Gujarat, has been extended to Dec 31 to address the same demand pressures.