India faces massive power crisis

Some 40% of India does not have electric power and for those portions that do have electricity, a power crisis is approaching.

India’s current power generating capacity of 1.9MW is 9% below its current power consumption of 2.17MW. Analysts said this shortfall in power production is being worsened by poor transmission and distribution.

Currently, many large cities such as Chennai, Bangalore and the capital, Delhi, are suffering from long power outages. Some 40% of India does not get electricity at all.

Ominously, there are media reports that some 30 power stations have just about a week's coal left to fuel their power plants.

Coal India, which supplies coal to 80% of India's power plants, has a shortage of 142 million tonnes. The coal shortage, however, is not the only reason for the worsening power crisis.

Poor transmission and distribution seem to be the main culprits. Ramesh Narayanan, Chief Executive Officer of the BSES Yamuna Power Ltd, said the main problem the lag in the distribution infrastructure development.

“The distribution infrastructure in the whole country has not kept pace with a development on the generation side. Even if you may have electricity available from the generators but the power does not reach the end consumer because the infrastructure for distributing that power is not given."