ABSTRACT
India's electricity demand has mostly been over-projected over the past two decades leading to surplus assets both in coal power generation and in the coal mining sector.
The current analysis highlights that with the addition of operational and mineable reserves with Coal India Ltd and captive operational reserves with private and other public sector entities, by 2030, India will have a cumulative coal-mining capacity of more than 2200 MTPA, which is even higher than most conservative estimates of annual electricity demand growth rate. Development and allocation of these surplus assets sink the investment without actual contribution to economic development, while it destroys the pristine forest, wildlife, ecosystem, and livelihood of vulnerable communities.
This chapter compares and builds on projections made by different government and non-government stakeholders to provide a range of both coal-powered generation capacity and coal requirements that the country would need to meet the electricity demand for 2030. Most estimations also take into consideration different RE scenarios; we hope to present the coal power and coal requirements within those scenarios. The chapter's main purpose is to signal how much coal is enough for India to avoid locking unchecked investments into the coal sector.
