Coal Power Pace Slows in India as Glut Leaves Plants Unused

Overcapacity, weak demand, renewables slowing new projects
Net new capacity may fall further as older plants phased out

Smoke rises from a chimney as electricity pylons stand at the Tata Power Co. Trombay Thermal Power Station in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2017. Nearly six months after his turbulent elevation to run India's biggest conglomerate, Tata Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran is assembling a team of dealmakers to refocus some of the group’s biggest businesses, expand its financial services and consumer businesses and sell or merge dozens of smaller units, according to interviews with senior executives.Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

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By Rajesh Kumar Singh and Anindya Upadhyay

January 1, 2018 at 10:30 PM UTC

Updated on

January 2, 2018 at 4:53 AM UTC

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India is adding the least amount of coal-fired power in more than a decade as tepid demand from indebted state retailers fails to utilize the nation’s existing generation capacity.

Coal-fired capacity, which accounts for more than three quarters of the nation’s electricity, rose by 809 megawatts during the April-November period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the latest available data from the Central Electricity Authority, the planning wing of the power ministry. That’s the slowest pace since 680 megawatts was added during the same eight-month stretch in 2006.