{"id":244616,"date":"2023-05-26T20:45:55","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=244616"},"modified":"2023-05-26T20:45:55","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:15:55","slug":"why-banning-new-coal-run-power-plants-is-a-good-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-banning-new-coal-run-power-plants-is-a-good-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Why banning new coal-run power plants is a good idea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source-<\/strong> The post is based on the article \u201cWhy banning new coal-run power plants is a good idea\u201d published in \u201cThe Times of India\u201d on 26th May 2023.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Energy<\/p>\n

Relevance- <\/strong>Thermal energy<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>– The government is contemplating a ban on setting up new coal-based power stations. The plants which are already under construction will be allowed to continue.<\/p>\n

Why is the move surprising?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The government has also said that in order to meet the power demand in 2029-30<\/strong>, an additional capacity <\/strong>of about 16,000 MW of coal-based capacity<\/strong> would be required. It is over and above the capacity of about 27,000 MW already under construction. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The need for additional capacity of 16,900 MW<\/strong> has been cited in the report of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) called Optimal Generation Capacity Mix<\/strong>. It\u00a0 was released recently.<\/p>\n

In fact, there are two versions of this report. <\/strong>The first was published in January 2020 and the second in April 2023.<\/p>\n

Why does the government feel that the additional capacity of about 16,000 MW of coal-based capacity may not be required?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There are primarily two reasons.<\/p>\n

The first reason is the demand for power in 2029-30 in the second report is based on the 20th Electric Power Survey (EPS)<\/strong> whereas the first report looked at the estimates of the 19th EPS. <\/strong>The demand for power in 2029-30 in the 20th EPS<\/strong> is somewhat more conservative. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The 19th EPS<\/strong> had projected a peak demand of 340 GW in 2029-30<\/strong> whereas the figure indicated in the 20th EPS is 334 GW<\/strong>. Similarly, the energy demand for the 19th and 20th EPS <\/strong>are 2,400 BUs and 2,313 BUs, respectively.<\/p>\n

Historically, CEA\u2019s power demand projections <\/strong>are known to be exaggerated. The government feels the actual demand in 2029-30<\/strong> could be even lower than the projections in the 20th EPS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The changing shape of the load curve<\/strong> is the second reason. Traditionally, in India, there have been two peaks in a day<\/strong>. The evening peak<\/strong> is usually higher than the morning though there are seasonal variations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The evening peak <\/strong>occurs at around 7 pm. We had to rely on coal-based capacity<\/strong> for meeting it as economically viable storage options<\/strong> were limited.<\/p>\n

However, the evening peak<\/strong> is actually occurring at about 4 pm in the last two to three years. This peak can be met through solar power. Hence, it can lower the need for coal-based capacity.<\/p>\n

Why in the second version of the CEA report, the required capacity for coal-based stations in 2029-30 has come down?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This decrease is because of a major change in policy<\/strong> relating to the retirement of units after they complete 25 years.<\/p>\n

This version mentions that about 2,121 MW of coal-based capacity<\/strong> would be retired by 2030 whereas the earlier version of this report stated that about 25,000 MW of coal-based capacity <\/strong>would be retired by 2030.<\/p>\n

The government probably feels it would be a good idea to carry on with old plants even after they have completed 25 years of operation. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The station heat rate<\/strong> of well-maintained plants does not get adversely affected with age<\/strong>. The transmission links<\/strong> are already there and the coal linkages<\/strong> are maintained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source- The post is based on the article \u201cWhy banning new coal-run power plants is a good idea\u201d published in \u201cThe Times of India\u201d on 26th May 2023. Syllabus: GS3- Energy Relevance- Thermal energy News– The government is contemplating a ban on setting up new coal-based power stations. The plants which are already under construction… Continue reading Why banning new coal-run power plants is a good idea<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10496],"class_list":["post-244616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-times-of-india","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1701234441},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}