Coal stocks at India's thermal power plants are declining amid surging power demand and monsoon-driven production and transportation disruptions, according to data from the National Power Portal.
Power plants had about 40.7 million tonnes (mt) of coal as of 20 July, adequate for about 13 days of operations as peak power demand neared 270 gigawatts (GW) on 17 July.
This compares with 19 days in May, when coal inventory was around 53 million tonnes (mt) and power demand hit a record 270.8GW.
However, while power demand eased to 250GW by 21 July, the energy shortage—resulting in power cuts and load shedding—worsened over the preceding days, reaching 23 million units on 19 July.
The shortage is typically in the single-digit million units, according to experts. Mint reported on 26 May that the shortage had reached 15 million units nationwide.
Punjab, Haryana and Goa top the list of states facing the shortage, showed data from the Grid Controller of India (Grid-India).
"Weather plays a key role in terms of demand. In 2025, demand was lower because the monsoon was good. Wind and hydro generation were also high. But this year, these have been affected by El Niño," said Pankaj Batra, former chairperson, Central Electricity Authority.
A 7 July report by S&P Global Energy said hydropower generation across key Asian markets fell sharply in June as weather-related disruptions reduced reservoir inflows, with India being the worst-affected market. India's hydropower generation fell by 6.3 average gigawatts (aGW) on-year.
Reservoir levels across the country are currently 39% lower than a year ago. According to the Central Water Commission, major reservoirs held 63.25 billion cubic metres (BCM) of water as of 16 July, down from 103.96 BCM in the year-ago period.
At the same time, about 44.45GW, roughly one-fifth of the country's 224GW thermal power generation capacity, is currently under forced outage, largely because of technical faults.
“We will have to see if the monsoon picks up, which may improve generation from wind and hydro,” Batra, who is also a senior advisor at New Delhi-based think tank Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe).
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast vigorous monsoon activity over northwestern, eastern and northeastern India for the next six to seven days, while rainfall is expected to remain subdued across west-central and peninsular India.
The weather office has also forecast widespread rainfall across Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan through 25 July, boosting kharif sowing in the northwestern plains and providing relief from humid conditions.