India will produce a record 700 million tonnes of coal in the current fiscal ending March 2021, helping cut down on imports, Coal Secretary Anil Jain said.
India produced 602.14 million tonnes of coal in 2019-20 fiscal year, marginally lower than 606 million tonnes output in the previous year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target to expand the country’s economy to USD 5 trillion by 2024, from USD 2.9 trillion currently, and reducing energy imports and harnessing domestic resources are key to meeting that goal.
India expects coal-fired power capacity to grow by 22% in three years.
That’s according to the Chief Engineer at the country’s Federal Power Ministry, Ghanshyam Prasad, who Reuters reported as stating coal capacity is likely to reach 238GW by 2022.
India’s Coal Minister, Pralhad Joshi previously said annual coal demand rose by 9.1% during the year ending March 2019, noting the overall demand figure hit 991.35 million tonnes, driven primarily by utilities, which accounted for three-quarters of it.
The anticipated growth is likely to affect efforts to cut emissions and could risk worsening already poor air quality.
India’s electricity demand rose by 36% in the seven years up to April 2019, while coal-fired generation capacity during the period rose by three-quarters to 194.44GW.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Climate Science welcomes your views/messages.