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Domestic coal will be allocated in the ratio of the fortnightly average power production by generating stations, which will exclude the coal required by all the pithead stations of respective gencos, since they don’t use the railway network and receive coal through the MGR method or conveyor belts.
With the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) estimating a peak power demand of 229 GW in India in April 2023, the Union Power Ministry’s new domestic coal allocation policy is slated to come into force on April 1 with an aim to distribute domestically available coal in an even manner.
In a review meeting held on March 7 by Minister for Power, and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh with officials from the ministries of power, railways and coal; it was noted that the domestically available coal from April to June 2023 won’t be more than 201 million tonnes (MT) due to constraints in railway logistics. However, the projected need of coal for this period will be 222 MT, due to which the need for an even distribution of domestic coal was observed.
Domestic coal will be allocated in the ratio of the fortnightly average power production by generating stations, which will exclude the coal required by all the pithead stations of respective gencos, since they don’t use the railway network and receive coal through the MGR method or conveyor belts.
Similarly, all plants off taking coal through roads as per their requirement will also be excluded. From April to June 2023, coal to be made available from captive mines will be excluded for allocation of rail rakes from Coal India Limited and SCCL, with the the coal from captive mines to be taken 5 percent over and above the level of availability in March 2023.
Allocation of rakes for states will be accordingly reduced if they are found to be selling power generated from domestic coal at notified price in a significant amount in the power exchange. Any surplus power will made available to other discoms across India through the PuShP Portal even as states have been asked to plan and arrange for any shortfall in domestic coal to meet their respective power demand.
To meet any shortfall of the peak power demand; NTPC is slated to run its 5000 MW gas-based power stations during the crunch period in April and May; Railways will provide 418 rakes to different subsidiaries of Coal India, GSS and captive blocks and gas-based power will be used to meet any peak demand.
4000 MW of additional gas-based power capacity will be added by other entities for availability, while all hydro plants have been instructed to operate in consultation with RLDCs/SLDCs (Regional/State Load Dispatch Centers) to optimise water utilisation.