New Delhi: Coal will remain a king in India, pushing zero goals further regardless of the government sustainable encouragement for renewable energy, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday.
According to the IEA 2021 coal report, Indian coal consumption will increase at an average annual rate of 3.9% to 1.18 billion tons in 2024, behind the GDP growth rate of 7.4% between 2022 and 2024, which partially will be encouraged by coal.
It saw the total annual demand for Indian coal rebounded in 2021 to 1.05 billion tons, slightly higher than the pre-pandemic level, from 931 million tons (MT) by 2020 when consumption fell due to damage to the demand of a pandemic induced.
“Because more households are connected with grids and income continues to increase, the sale of higher household electrical equipment (and electric vehicles in the near future) will cause an increase in electricity demand stable.
Power demand is also expected to grow in industry such as aluminum, as well as steel production and cement to meet the needs of construction and infrastructure projects, “said the report.
No wonder the report saw India, China and the US driving a global coal consumption to a record level at the beginning of next year, throwing shadows through the net-zero path announced by countries at the COP26 climate summit recently in Glasgow, England.
India has set net-zero goals in 2070, which mostly depend on 450 gigawatt renewable capacity in 2030.
“Promise to achieve zero-zero emissions made by many countries, including China and India, must have very strong implications For coal – but this has not been seen in our short-term estimate, reflecting the main gap between ambitions and actions, “according to Keisuke Sadamori, Director of the IEA Energy and Security Market.
Sadamori saw China and India, contributed two third-thirds of demand as a whole and depends on coal and with a combined population of nearly 3 billion people, holding the key to coal demand in the future.
At 705 MT in 2020, the power plant has the largest part of Indian coal consumption, followed by 170 MT thermal coal for non-power applications.
The rest is metallurgical coal used mainly in steel production.
Consumption fell 8% in all final use of 2019, the result of pandemic locking.
Coal power plants fell 3.5% by 2020.
According to the report, coal burning will form 74% of the power mixture in 2021, up from 72% by 2020, mainly driven by new electrical connections and 28.2 Million households and reopen the economy after a deadly second covid-19 wave.
Power demand in India rose sharply by 2021.
The generation of utility power, which accounted for more than 85% of the total power plant, up 13% from January to August 2021, compared to the same month in 2020, and 5% higher than 2019.