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National power demand in India has hit 250 Gw, 25 per cent more than last year and 71 per cent more than in 2022. The power ministry has rightly taken pride in ensuring that thermal power stations have adequate stocks of coal to keep the lights, fans and air-conditioning on. This has been a chronic problem in previous summers, leading to prolonged outages. This year, coal stocks have reached plants well on time. As on June 23, 2024 thermal power plants had 16 days of stocks as against 9.4 days on June 23, 2022 and 12.7 days on the same day in 2023.

The Government expects to add 15.4 Gw of coal-fired capacity in 2024-25, the highest in 9 years and 90 Gw by 2032. A programme of "Coal Reforms 3.0" is on the agenda to increase the availability of coal for industrial sectors, especially steel units, with the broad objective of reducing imports to zero in the next two financial years.

India has set a target to achieve 50 per cent cumulative installed capacity from non-fossil fuel- based energy resources by 2030 and has pledged to reduce the emission intensity of its gross domestic product by 45 per cent by 2030, based on 2005 levels. The installed capacity of non- fossil power in India is now 45.3 per cent of the total capacity, putting India on track to exceed its climate-change commitments. But this is illusory progress. The absence of viable storage technologies has limited grid offtake from renewable sources.

Encouraging industry to continue its dependence on coal is unhelpful. In this respect Coal Reforms 3.0 appears to be at odds with a scheme announced earlier this year for a pilot project for given hydrogen to replace coal both as a fuel and as feedstock (which is possible even in steel produced through the blast furnace route). Given that coal-based thermal plants are responsible for a disproportionately higher share of emission than the industrial sector, the government may do well to power India's economy in the immediate future.