India is grappling with an unexpected power shortage in early autumn, a critical concern for the upcoming festive season. This electricity crisis stems from a severe deficit in coal supply for thermal power plants, which generate the majority of the nation's electricity, and a lack of sufficient monsoon water to adequately fill hydroelectric reservoirs. Sustained high temperatures and increased demand for irrigation have kept electricity consumption at levels typically seen during summer peaks, placing immense pressure on the power grid. Supply chain disruptions, particularly prolonged rains hindering coal mining and transportation, have prevented adequate replenishment of coal stocks at power plants.

India is grappling with an unexpected power shortage in early autumn, a critical concern for the upcoming festive season. This electricity crisis stems from a severe deficit in coal supply for thermal power plants, which generate the majority of the nation's electricity, and a lack of sufficient monsoon water to adequately fill hydroelectric reservoirs. Sustained high temperatures and increased demand for irrigation have kept electricity consumption at levels typically seen during summer peaks, placing immense pressure on the power grid. Supply chain disruptions, particularly prolonged rains hindering coal mining and transportation, have prevented adequate replenishment of coal stocks at power plants.

India is grappling with an unexpected power shortage in early autumn, a critical concern for the upcoming festive season. This electricity crisis stems from a severe deficit in coal supply for thermal power plants, which generate the majority of the nation's electricity, and a lack of sufficient monsoon water to adequately fill hydroelectric reservoirs. Sustained high temperatures and increased demand for irrigation have kept electricity consumption at levels typically seen during summer peaks, placing immense pressure on the power grid. Supply chain disruptions, particularly prolonged rains hindering coal mining and transportation, have prevented adequate replenishment of coal stocks at power plants.

India is surprisingly facing a power shortage — surprising because it is not the usual peak summer load period but actually the beginning of autumn when the weather starts cooling down, and electricity demand goes down. And this could just rain on India’s upcoming festive season.

A few days ago, the peak national electricity demand touched 269 GW — that is just short of the all-time peak load demand of 270 GW back in May. But then again, that was peak summer, while this demand is coming in September. Blame it on whatever; the hard truth is that the electricity cuts and crisis in power generation could just rain on the upcoming festive season.

The two primary reasons include a huge supply gap in coal and a lack of enough monsoon water to fill up hydroelectric projects. The first is more serious, with a large chunk of India’s electricity, more than 70 per cent by some estimates, being generated from coal in thermal power plants.

And with just about one third of the required coal stocks available at India’s thermal power plants, present estimates report that India has just enough to generate power to meet one week’s pan-national demand.

While households have been experiencing daily outages, states like Kerala have gone in for regular power cuts during peak evening hours over the past fortnight. In Punjab, farmers are complaining of lack of electricity, especially as it comes at the peak of the paddy harvest season. The situation could turn sensitive as the state heads to polls in a few months’ time. In Bihar, hundreds of irate villagers blocked the Patna-Gaya highway on Sunday, after electricity snapped for three days. In Karnataka, a crisis management group has been formed by the government over the shortfall (said to be as much as 1 GW), though the electricity minister stated on Sunday that there was no question of imposing load shedding.

“This is due to the result of changes in the demand-supply dynamics rather than inadequate installed capacity,” explained Felix Kadam, co-founder and managing director of Cospower Engineering.

The tremendous power consumption in September is mainly a result of changes in the demand-supply dynamics rather than inadequate installed capacity. The mix of sustained high temperatures, lower-than-usual rainfall and greater demand for irrigation has resulted in above-normal electricity use, maintaining demand around summer peak levels. Meanwhile, decreasing hydropower generation has increased dependence on thermal electricity, increasing pressure on coal supply and stocks at some power plants.

The coal challenge is worrying, stemming from a supply chain issue, with prolonged rains across the eastern coal belt disrupting mining operations and hampering the transport of coal. A CRISIL study monitoring supply trends between April and August noted that even as consumption surged, rake (goods train wagons carrying coal) loading increased only around five per cent. This turned out to be insufficient to replenish stocks at power plants.

“The sharp depletion was concentrated among plants dependent on domestic coal, highlighting the challenges of timely inventory replenishment amid elevated power demand and coal consumption,” said the aforementioned CRISIL analysis.

The government has asked power plants to operate at full capacity. Large industrial facilities, such as fertiliser and cement factories that generate their own electricity, have also been asked to supply power to the national grid.

While on paper, half of India’s installed energy generation is from renewable sources like solar, in ground reality, coal produces more than 70 per cent of actual electricity delivered. This is primarily due to the unsteady nature of renewables (solar power generation goes down when the sun sets, while wind energy tanks when there is no strong breeze), and to a small extent, the various buying agreements that state electricity boards enter into, where cost and availability from the central grid also tend to be factors.

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