“A shortage of fuel has constrained expansion in India’s power sector, which consumes about two-thirds of the country’s coal output and has a current installed capacity of over 186,000 megawatts.”
Reuters reports:
India acted to alleviate chronic power shortages that hinder its economic growth on Wednesday ordering its monopoly coal miner Coal India to guarantee long-term supplies or face penalties.
It asked the world’s largest coal miner, state-run Coal India, to sign 20-year fuel supply deals with power projects that are due to be commissioned by 2015 and have an agreement with distribution utilities to sell power.
This would help power plants with an estimated capacity of more than 50,000 megawatts, a government statement said.
The government decision followed intensive lobbying by top executives from India’s power companies, who had sought the help of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to boost supplies of coal…
It sure beats the cattle manure out of their previous power source.