States Hit By Power Outages As Energy Crisis Starts To Bite
NDTV
Rajasthan has been receiving less than half of its contracted volumes of coal from Coal India Ltd.
India's energy crisis is starting to bite with states from Uttar Pradesh to Rajasthan and Kerala hit by blackouts over the weekend.
In Rajasthan, there were rolling outages of as much as two hours in urban areas and four hours in rural areas, said Subodh Agarwal, the state's additional chief secretary for energy.
Rajasthan has been receiving less than half of its contracted volumes of coal from Coal India Ltd., he said. There were also power shortages in other states including Punjab and Jharkhand, according to government data. Maharashtra, home to the country's financial capital Mumbai, had 11 gigawatts of capacity under outage on Friday, comprising 35% of its supply sources, for reasons including coal shortages, the data show.
The shortage of coal -- which makes up around 70% of India's electricity mix -- is forcing generators and some industrial users to buy electricity at the power exchange. Spot prices on the Indian Energy Exchange Ltd. have more than tripled over the past two weeks, reaching 16.42 rupees a kilowatt hour on Monday. That's the highest in 12 years, according to the company.
