Fresh Highs In Renewable Power Generation Supported India During Coal Crisis

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As India faced the worst power cuts in the last six years in April, 2022, the data released by the Central Government shows that there was record renewable energy production in the country which reduced the dependence on the coal and also helped the rise in the coal inventories. This happened even when there was a huge rise of 23.5% in the electricity demand in May – all credit to the early onset of summers and scorching sun. In May, total renewable capacity in the country excluding large Hydro was over 111 GW, made up primarily of solar and wind energy, besides biomass and small hydro.

The abrupt rise in power demand in India had compelled the government to open the coal mines and import coal. The expansion in renewables, especially solar certainly helped mitigate the crisis especially during daytime.

Renewable energy sources made up 14.1% of generation, up from 10.2% from April, in the power output of the country. The share of coal in the power output decreased to 72.4% from 76.8%.

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But the larger picture is that India continues to depend on coal based power generation to satisfy domestic demand. The share of coal share remained high even in May 2021 at 70.9%.

The impact of more renewable energy production in India was that the coal inventories of the power utilities were lowest in April as the demand in April was highest in recent years, but the coal inventory rose sharply by 6.3% in May.

The data also showed that there was no decline in the electricity production in the country. The power shortages that were experienced at the early onset of the summers were driven entirely by demand. The power shortage narrowed to 0.4% of requirements last month. The daily load despatch data from grid regulator POSOCO shows that in April it was 1.8%.

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Wind energy generation which increases from May every year was 51.1% higher last month compared with last year. The solar output rose by 37.8%. The overall energy production from renewable sources’ bolstered by 44.1% this year. The expansion in the green energy generation is also the fastest in the last few years. With a strong pipeline of projects due to come online, support from renewables will continue to be vital, although without large energy storage, it is still some distance away from providing round the clock support for coal powered generation. That’s an aspect the government hopes to tackle starting 2024 going by current plans, which means, it will need softening of international coal and gas prices, besides a significant ramp up in coal production, to keep the power going to homes and industries across the country,

For now, the government is priming for the post monsoon period, when coal inventories traditionally drop and renewable production also falls.