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Bloomberg
India is adding the least amount of coal-fired power in more than a decade as tepid demand from indebted state retailers fails to utilise the nation’s existing generation capacity.
Coal-fired capacity, which accounts for more than three quarters of the nation’s electricity, rose by 809 megawatts during the April-November period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the latest available data from the Central Electricity Authority, the planning wing of the power ministry.
Power producers have cancelled some coal-fired projects as existing plants fail to sell all the electricity they can produce. Nearly 40 percent of the country’s coal-based capacity is unused because the core customers, state-managed distribution companies, struggle to increase purchases in the face of massive debts and losses through electricity theft, insufficient metering and selling power below cost.
The inability of state distributors to utilise existing plants leaves India with a glut of capacity while still nearly 300 million Indians, mostly rural, remain without access to electricity. PM Narendra Modi’s administration, which came to power in 2014 promising electricity for all, has launched ambitious programmes to bring electricity to every household by December 2018.