NEW DELHI: Coal-based power generation has witnessed a growth of 9.26% to 1,02,529 million units (MU) in April as compared to the year-ago period.
According to the data released by the coal ministry on Tuesday, the overall power generation in April, 2022, has been 11.75% higher than the power generated in April 2021 and 2.23% higher than power generated in March 2022.
Coal-based power generation in the month of April, 2022 has been 1,02,529 MU in comparison to 1,00,276 MU in March 2022 and registered a growth of 2.25 %.
Total power generation has also increased in April 2022 to 1,36,565 MU from 1,33,584 MU in March 2022.
The ministry had earlier said that the current power crisis is mainly on account of sharp decline in electricity generation from different fuel sources and not due to non-availability of domestic coal.
The total coal production increased by 29% to 66.58 million tonne (MT) from 51.62 MT in April 2022, as compared to April, 2021.
At the same time, coal despatch increased by 8.66% to 71.30 MT from 65.62 MT during April, 2022 as compared to April, 2020.
The Power utilities coal despatch has gone up by 18.15 % to 61.81 MT during April, 2022 as compared to 52.32 MT in April, 2020.
Meanwhile, rating agency ICRA has said in a report that higher coal imports is likely to increase cost of supply for discoms by 4.5-5% in 2022-2023.
The rating agency said measures directed by the government to ease power supply constraints through imports is thus likely to considerably increase the import dependency for the power sector from nearly 4% in 2021-2022 to about 12-13% in 2022-2023.
Earlier, the power ministry in its official order directed all imported coal-based power plants to operate and generate power at their full capacity and (gencos) based on domestic coal will have to import at least 10% of their fuel requirement.
Power shortage
Earlier, the power ministry in its official order directed all imported coal-based power plants to operate and generate power at their full capacity and (gencos) based on domestic coal will have to import at least 10% of their fuel requirement.