New Delhi: The Union government on Thursday informed Parliament that it has revised the coal stocking norms for thermal power plants across the country. It also informed the Lok Sabha that coal stocks at nearly 136 power plants have improved in November as compared to the previous two months.
“Revised coal stocking norms have been formulated by Central Electricity Authority (CEA) mandating the coal stock of 17 days at pit head stations and 26 days at non-pit head stations to be maintained by power plants from February to June every year,” Union minister of power and new & renewable energy RK Singh said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
Non-pit head plants are power plants where the coal mine is more than 1,500 km away.
Singh also informed that coal stocks at 136 power plants in the country improved to 18.95 million tonnes (MT) in November this year as compared to 8.07 MT in October and 10.37 MT in September. However, the current stock is still not as much of a comfortable situation as it can run all the plants for an average of 9.5 days.
Senior power officials said the change in norms is significant because power plants will have to strictly follow these parameters, failing which penalties will be levied — an aspect that was not present in CEA regulations so far. “The power plants will now have to keep adequate coal stocks as per the new norms. It is aimed to avoid a repeat of the recent crisis when a significant capacity of generating station had to be shut down due to low coal stocks,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}Senior power officials said the change in norms is significant because power plants will have to strictly follow these parameters, failing which penalties will be levied — an aspect that was not present in CEA regulations so far. “The power plants will now have to keep adequate coal stocks as per the new norms. It is aimed to avoid a repeat of the recent crisis when a significant capacity of generating station had to be shut down due to low coal stocks,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, power plants located at pit head plants were required to keep 15 days of coal stock, while the requirement increased to 20 days for plants located within 200 km from the mines, 25 days for those within 1,000 km and 30 days for plants situated further away from the mines.