Coal Requirement in 2020: A Bottom-up Analysis

Abstract

In this report, we aim to examine the demand for coal in India in 2020 (using FY’14-15 as a base year), focusing on domestic coal production. Coal is predominantly used in power production, and hence answering this question requires a deep dive into (1) Demand for power; (2) Alternatives for power generation, especially Renewable Energy (RE), which has ambitious growth targets in the short term; and (3) ability to produce coal-based power (looking at virtually all the power plants under construction/planned, examining their location, technology, status of clearances, etc.) Clearly, this is not an easy exercise. First of all, there are inter-relationships between variables, and hence the holistic look at this topic (one cannot do simple extrapolations only). Second, there is enormous uncertainty, even in just a few years (forget a more complex exercise such as modelling for 2030, the year for the carbon commitments for Paris COP21, through India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC)). Therefore, we apply not just wide sensitivity analysis, but also have released the model3 used, so that analysts/scholars/decision-makers can modify key assumptions to visualise its impacts.