Electricity deficits this summer could be worse than expected
\n NEW DELHI\/SINGAPORE
\nIndia faces a high risk of nighttime power cuts this summer and in coming years, as delays in adding new coal-fired and hydropower capacity could limit the country\u2019s ability to address surging electricity demand when solar energy is not available.
\nA rapid addition of solar farms has helped India avert daytime supply gaps, but a shortage of coal-fired and hydropower capacity risks exposing millions to widespread outages at night, government data and internal documents reviewed by Reuters show.
\nIndia\u2019s power availability in \u201cnon-solar hours\u201d this April is expected to be 1.7% lower than peak demand – a measure of the maximum electricity requirement over any given time, an internal note by the federal grid regulator reviewed by Reuters showed.
\nApril nighttime peak demand is expected to hit 217 gigawatts (GW), up 6.4% on the highest nighttime levels recorded in April last year.
\n\u201cThe situation is a little stressed,\u201d Grid Controller of India Ltd (Grid-India) said in the note dated Feb. 3.
\nWhile Indians looking to beat the heat this summer will want steady power for their air-conditioners, night time outage risks threaten industries that operate around the clock, including auto, electronics, steel bar and fertiliser manufacturing plants.
\n\u201cIf there is a power cut even for one minute, paper pulp gets blocked and messes up the delicate process and causes hundreds of thousands of rupees in losses,\u201d said P.G. Mukundan Nair, former chief of an Indian paper industry body who has been in paper manufacturing for nearly three decades.
\n\u201cEven the smallest interruption in power supply will create havoc,\u201d Nair said.
\nThe electricity deficits this summer could be worse than expected, as Grid-India\u2019s shortage forecasts were made weeks before India\u2019s weather office predicted heat waves between March and May.
\nEmergency steps
\nIndia\u2019s federal power secretary Alok Kumar downplayed concerns, saying the government had taken \u201call steps\u201d to avoid power cuts.
\n\u201cWe are making capacity available to all states at competitive rates,\u201d Kumar told Reuters.
\nAfter the Grid-India report, the government brought forward maintenance at some coal-fired power plants and secured extra gas-fired capacity to run to try to avert outages, another senior government official said.
\nAs much as 189.2 GW of coal-fired capacity is expected to be available this April, according to Grid-India\u2019s February note. That would be up more than 11% from last year, according to Reuters calculations based on Grid-India data.
\nTogether, coal, nuclear and gas capacity are expected to meet about 83% of peak demand at night.
\nHydro power will be crucial not only to meet much of the remaining supply but also as a flexible generator, as coal-fired plants cannot be ramped up and down quickly to address variability in demand.
\nHowever Grid-India has forecast peak hydro availability in April this year will be 18% below what it was a year earlier, when output was boosted by favourable weather conditions.
\nImported coal-based power plants would be required to crank up output to up to 55% of total potential from 21% in February, while domestic coal-fired units will have to increase output to 75% of potential from 69% in February, Hetal Gandhi, Director- Research at CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics said.
\n\u201cThe burden of increased supply will definitely be borne by coal and gas,\u201d Gandhi said, adding achieving it would be a \u201ctall order\u201d.
\nMore capacity needed
\nThe nighttime outage risks are in sharp contrast to daytime. Supply in daylight hours has been bolstered by nearly four-fold growth in solar capacity over the past five years, in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Paris climate agreement pledge to curb carbon emissions.
\nAs of last April, solar boosted renewables\u2019 contribution to as much as 18% of India\u2019s generation in the middle of the day.
\nThe strain comes after sundown, as coal-fired capacity has grown only 9% over the last five years.
\nAround midnight through April last year, jostling for power was intense, with buyers making bids for five times more power than sellers offered, a Reuters analysis of data from the Indian Energy Exchange, the country\u2019s most liquid electricity trading platform, showed.
\nThe widening demand-supply fault lines highlight the need to expedite coal capacity additions to avert outages in the next few years.
\nConstruction of as many as 26 coal-fired units with a capacity of 16.8 GW has been delayed by more than a year, data from the Central Electricity Authority shows, with some plants facing delays of more than 10 years.
\nProjects under construction are being stalled by local protests over environmental concerns, legal challenges over compensation for land acquisition, and availability of labour and equipment, according to officials at power plants.
\nHydro and nuclear power capacity additions face tougher obstacles, as they are hobbled by lack of foreign investment and opposition from critics over safety and environmental issues, boding ill for power supply down the track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Electricity deficits this summer could be worse than expected NEW DELHI\/SINGAPORE India faces a high risk of nighttime power cuts this summer and in coming years, as delays in adding new coal-fired and hydropower capacity could limit the country\u2019s ability to address surging electricity demand when solar energy is not available. A rapid addition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-318535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n