Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: India will add more new coal power capacity than it has in almost a decade this year, as the country rushes to deploy generation to cope with surging electricity demand. The world’s most populous nation expects to add 15.4 gigawatts in the year through March 2025, the most in nine years, said people familiar with the matter, as per aET report.
New Delhi is pursuing ambitious clean power targets, but the reality of rapid economic growth has prolonged reliance on the dirtiest fossil fuel. Increasingly severe heat waves are making matters worse, pushing electricity consumption to fresh records every year. Coal still generates about three-quarters of India’s electricity, and the government sees it remaining the mainstay fuel for at least another decade.
India has managed to add more than 100 gigawatts of renewable capacity over the past decade, outpacing growth in thermal power generation However, insufficient energy storage is holding back expansion of environmentally friendly electricity.Battery storage is still not affordable in India’s competitive power market and most pumped hydro projects — an alternative storage technology — are still at a nascent stage. Other low-carbon options, such as large dams and nuclear plants are also moving at a slow pace.
