Amid the ongoing coal crisis, a concerning update claims that New Delhi may lose power if the coal supply is not restored within the next 2 days. As the city braces itself for significant blackouts and power outages, New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has reached out to Prime Minister Modi. The Aam Aadmi Party leader took to Twitter and claimed that he’s “personally keeping a watch” on the situation.

The report comes a few days after it the news of coal crunch across India made headlines. It was also reported that the country’s average reserve was only available for the next 2 days.

Details

Amid all the hype and glory about the merits of electric vehicles and modes of renewable energy, we sometimes lost the sight of an important aspect. India still continues to use coal in its thermal plants for the manufacturing of electricity. The primary energy source attributes to about 70% of contribution.

So what would happen if suddenly India faces a crunch in the supply of its biggest energy source – coal.

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The Facts of the Matter

On October 9, Delhi Chief Minister sought intervention from the Prime Minister after the national capital is facing an alarming shortage of coal. Much akin to how CM Kejriwal had asked PM Modi to allocate oxygen to his state, the Delhi CM has now written a letter explaining the coal shortage to PM Modi.

“I draw your attention to the prevailing coal shortage situation that is continuing since August/September for the third month in a row, which has affected power generation from the major central generating plants supplying power to Delhi,” he wrote.

Coal Reserves for Just 1 day

In his letter to the Prime Minister, CM Kejriwal has noted how the CERC (Central Electricity Regulatory Commission) has a mandate that electricity generation stations must maintain coal stock of 10 days. He claimed that in major electricity generation stations, the coal reserves stand at just 1 day.

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Gas Plants Supplying Power Inadequate of Gas

The CM further explained in his letter that under such situation, supplying stations rely on Gas Stations for power generation. “However, the gas plants supplying power to Delhi do not have adequate APM gas to run at full capacity,” Kejriwal wrote. “If this situation continues unabated, it would severely impact the power supply situation in Delhi,” Kejriwal’s letter further read.

What Tata Power Has to Say About the Crunch

Earlier TPDDL (Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited) which serves over 7 million people in North and North West Delhi issued a statement. In the statement, the TPDDL’s CEO claimed that the coal-based plants have reserves for only 1-2 days against the government mandated 20 days.  The TPDDL CEO also claimed that as a result of the shortage, Delhi may have load shedding.

Further, TPDDL has also sent text messages to Delhi residents to use electricity carefully. “”Due to limited coal availability in generation plants across north, power supply scenario between 2 pm to 6 pm is at critical level. Kindly use electricity judiciously. Be a responsible citizen. Inconvenience caused is regretted,” read an text message, as reported by Hindustan Times.

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What Has Caused the Current Coal Crisis in India?

With such a huge crisis, no single factor can be stated which can cause the crisis. The two major factors of the crisis is increased powered demand and more coal getting more expensive than ever.

For the unversed, India’s 70% of electricity generation happens thanks to coal-based plants. Among these plants, more than a half of the plants use domestic coal to generate electricity. The remaining quarter of the plants use imported coal.

Thanks to economies opening up after the COVID-19 and the COVID-19 induced lockdowns, the demand for the domestic coal is at its all-time high. After India’s economy opened up, demand for power shot up drastically. Power consumption in India in the last couple of months is more than 17% than in 2019 when there was no pandemic.