In November, India’s power demand growth slowed on a monthly basis which helped ease the coal shortage that had caused widespread power cuts.
Electricity demand grew by 2.2% last month, compared to the 4.1% climb in October. The rise was mainly driven by the growth in electricity consumption in India's most industrialized state Maharashtra.
On the other hand, other industrialized states, including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, registered a decline in power use. Meanwhile, Gujarat's consumption growth was largely flat.
According to the federal grid regulator Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (POSOCO), the average daily coal-fired power generation in November was down by 2.8% from the previous month.
As of November 29, the number of plants having supply agreements with Coal India with inventories of three days or less dropped to 31 out of the 135 plants, compared to 44 in October. The average coal inventory held by power plants would last 9 days.
It was higher than 6 days on October 31, but still far below the average of 12 days three months ago.
Last month’s dependence on coal for electricity generation soared to 75.2% from the previous month’s 70.6% although the total electricity production from coal dropped.
