Summer Brightens Prospects for Power Demand
The CEA has set the electricity generation target from conventional sources, which include coal, gas, nuclear and hydro power plants, at 126,000 MU for FY19, 6.7% higher than power produced from these sources in FY18. In order to achieve this target, state and private power plants would have to raise their annual production by 9.2% and 13.4%, respectively, while generation from central government-owned plants would slip by 0.7%, data from the CEA report showed. The estimate sounds positive for private power plants which are running at very low utilisation levels due to less-than-expected growth in power demand. The PLF central government-owned thermal power plants in FY18 was 72.4%, while private power plants were running at 55.1% in the sa.....