Several power plants in Delhi have only one day’s worth of coal left, Delhi’s government said on Friday. The city’s chief minister said the situation was being dealt with somehow.
The chief minister said that the country needs to take quick and concrete steps to deal with its problems.
Coal is in short supply because there aren’t enough train cars to move it, Delhi’s power minister told reporters. He said that if power plants are shut down, there could be “difficulty” getting electricity.
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The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) held an emergency meeting with other power companies and announced several steps to help.
According to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), coal isn’t running out in Delhi. The Unchahar and Dadri power plants, which provide electricity to the national capital, run at total capacity and get “regular” coal deliveries.
All six units of Dadri and five units of Unchahar are running at total capacity and getting coal regularly. There are 1,40,000 MT and 95,000 MT of coal in stock now, and NTPC says coal from other countries is also coming in.
Mr Kejriwal, on the other hand, said that the power situation in all of India is very bad.
Is there not enough power in the country? So far, we have found a way to do it in Delhi. All over India, things are horrible, and they will get even worse soon. Together, we will soon need to come up with a way out. “Quick, concrete steps must be taken to solve this problem,” he tweeted.
In another tweet, the NTPC said that Unchahar and Dadri stations are putting more power into the grid than they are supposed to. In Unchahar and Dadri, all units except Unit One are running at total capacity. Unit One, which has an annual planned overhaul, isn’t running. On Thursday, the Delhi government said there might be a problem keeping essential places in the city, like Metro trains and hospitals, getting electricity.
After a meeting with power companies and other agencies, the DERC said, “The power crisis is likely to be caused by a lack of coal and a rise in short-term power prices.” People and distribution licensees will be better off due to DERC’s short-term solution to the power crisis. It allowed intra-discom banking, overlapping of banking and bilateral transactions, pass-through of other deviation, and continued deviation charges with immediate effect.
The interim measures will stay in place until July 31, the DERC said.
Coal was scarce because there were not enough train rakes to move it. It hasn’t been possible to add more train rakes, he said. Instead, rakes have been cut down from 450 to 405.
This isn’t the only thing the minister said. Power plants like Dadri and Uchahar had only a day’s worth of coal, which isn’t enough to last 21 days.
He also said that Delhi had not paid the Center for coal yet.
Jain had a meeting to figure out what was going on and asked the government to ensure there was enough coal for the power plants that were giving Delhi electricity.
A source told me that the Delhi government might be able to make more electricity at its gas-fired power plant, which can make 1,500 MW of electricity. However, they said that the cost of gas might make it challenging to do so.
Each day, Delhi gets 1,751 MW of power from the Dadri-II, Unchahar, Kahalgaon, Farakka, Jhajjar plants, and other sources. The Delhi government said it got 728 MW from the Dadri-II power station and 100 MW from the Unchahar power station in the past.
Delhi’s peak power demand has been increasing as the temperature hit record highs.
People used 6,050 MW of electricity at 11:17 PM on Thursday. People who work for electricity providers think that Delhi’s peak demand for power will be about 8,200 megawatts in the coming months.
