Coal shortage has been plaguing the nation. However, Praveer Sinha, managing director and CEO at Tata Power, believes it to be a temporary phenomenon.

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In an interview with CNBC-TV18, he said, “I think coal shortage issue is more of a temporary phenomenon. In the next two-four weeks, things should stabilise.”

Globally, the price of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) has gone up. Similarly, the international coal prices are also at an all-time high, which is also impacting the imported coal – there is nearly 10 gigawatts of plants which are stranded today, he noted. The plants dependent on LNG are not operating.

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“We definitely have shortage in many of the plants. It is three-five days of stock which is there, so it is virtually a hand-to-mouth situation but we have seen that demand has increased with all the industries and commercial establishments back in action – there has also been delayed monsoon and lesser monsoon in some places, the drought conditions have prevailed over there, because of that the usage of energy has gone up. There is a lot of pressure on all coal as well as power companies to generate maximum, and hopefully, we should be out of this in the next few weeks,” he mentioned.

In terms of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, the company has ambitious plans of connecting the north and south, and east and west of the country.

“We are nearly 1,000 (EV charging stations) now, 600 was when we closed the year in March. We have plans to aggressively increase it during this financial year. We have started work on the connection from Kashmir to Kanyakumari – 3,600-kilometre length and every 100 kilometres, we will have charging infrastructure,” Sinha mentioned.

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Going forward, the company expects to offer a seamless travel experience.

He also mentioned that all the domestic coal-based plants of the company are operating at 100 percent capacity. “On domestic coal, there is no impact as such. Whatever shortage is there, it is because of the fuel supply agreements, it is not that the e-auction prices have gone up and that is why the shortage is there. It is primarily because of the ability to mine coal and transport coal under the long-term FSAs, it is only in the imported coal because of the prices having gone up so much and the revised PPAs have not been finalised by the beneficiary states,” he explained.

In terms of power rates, he said, “The day ahead market through the exchanges is about Rs 6 on an average but there are periods during the day when it goes up to about Rs 15-16, typically during the evening time. So on an average, it is still at Rs 5.5-6. We expect that this will continue in the month of October and thereafter, once winter starts, the pressure will be much less and the requirement of power will also come down.”

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According to reports, Tata Power will be selling power from Mundra outside of the power purchase agreements (PPAs), perhaps on exchanges as well.

“Government of India was supposed to come with a notification under section 11 of the Electricity Act. That notification is still awaited whereby the option was that if the coal prices are very high and you are not able to supply based on the existing PPA, you have the opportunity to supply in the exchange and thereby the exchange prices come down because that much additional power becomes available,” Sinha stated.

“We are told that the Ministry of Power in consultation with the Law Ministry and others is finalising the notification. I do hope that they will come out with the option, which will in a way help in putting more quantity of power into the grid and thereby stabilise the prices,” he said.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video.

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(Edited by : Dipika Ghosh)

First Published:Sept 30, 2021 12:29 PM IST