Indian Coal-fired Power Plants Research Articles

Potential reductions in fine particulate matter and premature mortality following implementation of air pollution controls on coal-fired power plants in India

Potential reductions in fine particulate matter and premature mortality following implementation of air pollution controls on coal-fired power plants in India

The burden of premature mortality from coal-fired power plants in India is high and inequitable

Prior mortality estimates of air pollution from coal-fired power plants in India use PM2.5 exposure-response functions from settings that may not be representative, and do not include other potentially harmful effects of these plants, such as fly ash pollution and heavy freshwater consumption. We use a national, district level dataset to assess the impact of coal-fired power plants on all-cause mortality (15–69 years) in 2014. We compare districts with coal-fired power plants (total capacity >1000 MW) to districts without a coal-fired power plant, estimating the effect of these power plants on all-cause mortality within districts that have these plants. Out of 597 districts in India in 2014, 60 districts had a coal-fired power plant. When compared to districts without a coal-fired power plant, districts with a coal-fired power plant (>1000 MW) had higher rates of age-standardized mortality in both women (0.38, 95% CI: −0.14–0.90) and men (0.55, −0.17–1.27). Similarly, these districts had higher rates of conditional probability of premature death in both women (2.22, −0.13–4.56) and men (2.12, −0.54–4.77). The point estimates for total excess deaths were 19 320 for women and 27 727 for men. In affected districts, the proportion of premature adult deaths attributable to coal-fired power plants was 5.8% (−0.3%–11.9%) in women and 4.3% (−1.1%–9.6%) in men. We estimate that ∼47 000 premature adult deaths can be attributed to large coal-fired power plants in India in 2014. These deaths are concentrated in the ∼10% of districts that have the nation’s power plants, where they are associated with 1 out of 20 premature adult deaths. Effective regulation of emissions from these plants, coupled with a phaseout of coal-fired power plants, can help decrease this burden of inequitable and premature adult mortality.

Reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants in India: Possibilities and challenges.

Coal combustion is the largest source of power in India at the moment. This combustion also emits trace amounts of hazardous substances such as mercury. Mercury is a global pollutant with the potential for long-range transport and ability to persist in the environment, bioaccumulate and cause toxicity. Controlling emissions of mercury from coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) is recognized by the Minamata Convention on Mercury as an important step in curbing the harmful effects of mercury to the environment and humans. India has been identified as one of the top emitters of mercury to the atmosphere, and coal combustion contributes to more than half of these emissions. Here, we discuss the current state of regulations on mercury emissions from CFPPs in India, the current information on mercury from CFPP stacks, and the possible way forward. Present data suggest that mercury specific emission control technologies are not required to comply with the regulatory requirements. As such, any reduction in mercury emissions will rely on co-benefits obtained from technologies to control emissions of other pollutants such as flue gas desulphurization, or methods to increase the efficiencies of CFPP such as coal washing. Additional reductions may be made from a business-as-usual scenario if the energy mix of India changes to renewable non-fossil fuel-based energy at an accelerated pace. Quantitative studies assessing the role of such climate change policies on mercury emissions reduction are recommended.

Explaining expedited energy transition toward renewables by COVID-19 in India

Energy transition toward renewables, mainly wind and solar, has gained momentum in the past decade. Although the COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented, multi-faceted challenges and uncertainties, India witnessed an expedited energy transition in 2020. With our newly constructed Electric System Dispatch Model for India (ESDMI), this study aims to provide an explanation of the underlining mechanisms. The Janta Curfew (7am-9pm) in India was observed on March 22, 2020 followed by a 21-day complete lockdown starting March 25, 2020 to control the spread of the virus. Electricity demand in India dropped by nearly a quarter. We model the supply-side dynamics prior to and during the pandemic response as well as in a counterfactual scenario in the pandemic's absence. We find that the expedited energy transition could be explained by (i) the higher priority of a large renewables fleet to access electric grid either through stipulations and the merit order effect, and (ii) coal-fired electricity generation is less flexible than natural gas and hydropower units. A substantial amount of coal-fired power plants in India are still far from reaching their designed lifetimes. Their low resilience in such crises could exacerbate the problem of stranded assets.

A review on life cycle assessment approach on thermal power generation

The global population is predicted to reach 9.9 billion people in 2050, with 80% of the population living in developing countries. As the world's population grows, the demand for electricity also increases. In most developing nations, coal is the most important source of energy. The environmental impacts of coal-based electricity generation are a key concern for long-term sustainability and hence an intensively studied topic in many nations. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method has been widely used around the world to assess the environmental impact of electricity generation. Because the results of LCA are generally dependent on geographical location, they must be carried out for a specific location. In the Indian context, there are still gaps to be addressed in this area. This review is part of the baseline research for a comprehensive LCA analysis of India's coal-fired power facilities. A literature analysis of a variety of worldwide studies is conducted with a focus on understanding the LCA technique and environmental assessment. The findings of the analysis demonstrate that, while prior LCA studies have proven useful, no comprehensive LCA on coal-fired power plants in India has yet been completed. As a result, the objective of this research is to undertake a systematic review of LCA studies conducted on coal-based thermal power plant operations, emissions mitigation strategies, and transmission and distribution. The paper also discusses the methodology adopted by the researchers and the results of the LCA of thermal power plants in the Indian context.

By-production of electricity and particulates: efficiency of Indian thermal power plants revisited

PurposeThis paper studies the efficiency of Indian coal-fired thermal power plants (CTPPs) in by-production of electricity and particulates also known as Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM).Design/methodology/approachA non-radial directional distance function is optimized using data envelopment analysis to enumerate the overall inefficiency of CTPPs and its components in recent times. Further, second-stage regression analysis is conducted to identify factors that affect the inefficiency of plants.FindingsThe low inefficiency score for electricity generation suggests that most CTPPs operate close to the good output frontier. A high degree of emissions inefficiency is a challenge for Indian CTPPs. Ever-rising coal use inefficiency is a hindrance to control SPM emissions. The second stage regression analysis concludes that factors like ownership and capacity utilization play vital roles in determining a plant’s inefficiency level. Privately owned CTPPs have performed better in terms of technical inefficiency and emission inefficiency than plants owned by Central and State governments.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few published works that benchmark the productive and environmental performance of Indian CTPPs.

The Health Impacts of Coal-Fired Power Plants in India and the Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas Reductions

Under the Paris Agreement, India has pledged that 40 percent of its electricity generating capacity will come from non-fossil-fuel sources by the year 2030; however, this pledge does not limit total coal-fired generating capacity. As of 2019, planned increases in coal-fired capacity totaled 95 gigawatts--46 percent of installed coal-fired capacity in 2018. In this paper, we estimate the carbon dioxide benefits and health co-benefits of not building these plants. We also estimate the mortality impacts of the 2018 stock of coal-fired power plants and use it to calculate the tax on electricity generation from coal that would internalize these damages.

The mortality impacts of current and planned coal-fired power plants in India

We examine the health implications of electricity generation from the 2018 stock of coal-fired power plants in India, as well as the health impacts of the expansion in coal-fired generation capacity expected to occur by 2030. We estimate emissions of SO2, NOX, and particulate matter 2.5 μm (PM2.5) for each plant and use a chemical transport model to estimate the impact of power plant emissions on ambient PM2.5 Concentration-response functions from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) are used to project the impacts of changes in PM2.5 on mortality. Current plus planned plants will contribute, on average, 13% of ambient PM2.5 in India. This reflects large absolute contributions to PM2.5 in central India and parts of the Indo-Gangetic plain (up to 20 μg/m3). In the south of India, coal-fired power plants account for 20-25% of ambient PM2.5 We estimate 112,000 deaths are attributable annually to current plus planned coal-fired power plants. Not building planned plants would avoid at least 844,000 premature deaths over the life of these plants. Imposing a tax on electricity that reflects these local health benefits would incentivize the adoption of renewable energy.

Impacts of changes in commercial non-coking coal grading system and other coal policies towards estimation of CO2 emission in Indian power sector

In India, coal-based electricity is a leading cause for greenhouse gas emissions. However, many uncertainties prevail in the emissions estimation from coal-fired plants due to the dynamics of varying net calorific values (NCV) and carbon emission factors (CEF) associated with different grades of coal coupled with the coal oxidation factors (COF) of power plants. After 2012, a major change in the Indian non-coking coal grading system along with other developments like (a) rising efficiencies of thermal power plants, (b) changes in coal quality due to mining at deeper seams, (c) coal mining and distribution strategy have affected the NCVs, CEFs and COF associated with coal combustion in Indian power plants. These changes are expected to impact the CO2 emissions from coal-based power plants. Our findings suggest that implementation of the newly revised, power sector specific, NCV-CEF-COF-2015 have resulted in reduction of CO2 emission estimates from coal-based electricity generation by about 139 Tera grams (Tg) (12%) and 73 Tg (7%) for the year 2015 as compared to the corresponding emissions calculated using NCV-CEF-COF-1994 and NCV-CEF-COF-2007, respectively. Going forward, these newly estimated factors will provide greater accuracy in emissions estimation from coal-fired power plants in India.

Falling efficiency levels of Indian coal-fired power plants: A slacks-based analysis

We use a comprehensive data set covering almost all Indian coal-fired power plants over the period 2005–14 to evaluate the technical efficiency of power plants using the Slacks-Based Measure model. We find that average technical efficiency falls from 0.847 in 2005 to 0.742 in 2014, indicating substantial scope for efficiency improvement. This trend is driven primarily by declining energy efficiency rather than declining managerial (non-energy) efficiency. We use Simar and Wilson's bootstrapped truncated regression approach to analyze the determinants of technical efficiency. We find an inverted-U shaped relationship exists between efficiency and plant age, with maximum efficiency levels observed between 22 and 23 years of age. Privately owned plants operate at higher efficiency levels than their State-owned counterparts. Large plants are more efficient than small and medium size plants. Coal quality has no significant influence on efficiency as usage of higher calorific value coal is not accompanied by a concomitant reduction in coal use. Foreign equipped plants operate at higher efficiency levels than Indian equipped plants.

Mercury emissions and partitioning from Indian coal-fired power plants

In India coal combustion is the single largest source of emission of mercury which is a wide-spread persistent global toxicant, travelling across international borders through air and water. As a party to the Minamata convention, India aims to monitor and reduce Hg emissions and stricter norms are introduced for mercury emissions from power plants (30 μg/Nm3for flue gas in stack).This paper presents the results obtained during the experimental studies performed on mercury emissions at four coal-fired and one lignite-fired power plants in India. The mercury concentration in the feed coal varied between 0.12–0.27 mg/Kg. In the mercury mass balance, significant proportion of feed coal mercury has been found to be associated with fly ash, whereas bottom ash contained very low mercury. 80%–90% of mercury was released to air through stack gas. However, for circulating fluidised bed boiler burning lignite, about 64.8% of feed mercury was found to get captured in the fly ash and only 32.4% was released to air. The mercury emission factor was found to lie in the range of 4.7–15.7 mg/GJ.

The Health Costs of Coal-Fired Power Plants in India

This paper estimates the effect of coal-fired power plants on infant mortality in India. We find that a one GW increase in coal-fired capacity corresponds to a 14% increase in infant mortality rates in districts near versus far from the plant site. This effect is 2-3 times larger than estimates from the developed world. Our effects are larger for: (1) older plants, (2) plants located in areas with higher baseline levels of pollution, and (3) plants burning domestic rather than imported coal. The environmental benefits from policy aimed at the power sector are thus likely to be substantially higher if targeted at older plants located in more polluted areas tailored to burn domestic rather than imported coal.

NOx control for high-ash coal-fired power plants in India

NO<i>x</i> control for high-ash coal-fired power plants in India

Productivity Assessment of Coal-Fired Thermal Power Plants: An Application of Hicks-Moorsteen Total Factor Productivity Index

In this paper, both technical and technological efficiency of Indian coal-fired power plants is studied using Hicks-Moorsteen Total Factor Productivity Index. Out of seventy-four, six power plants, i.e., Chandrapura, Dahanu, Korba-west, Ramagundem–B, Rayalaseema and Talcher, have achieved positive growth in all the indexes of productivity. 43.24% of power plants saw the average TFP growth of 20.2% while remaining observed a negative average change of -14.9%. Further, the outcome of this study shows that central-owned power generation plants have outperformed in all the efficiency indexes as compared to private and state-owned power plants

A preliminary analysis of increase in water use with carbon capture and storage for Indian coal-fired power plants

Abstract Coal shall continue to be the mainstay of Indian energy sector. Nevertheless, if greater decarbonization is desired owing to more stringent climate regulations, CO2 capture and storage may be an important technology. This work focuses on identifying the impact of carbon capture techniques on the water usage of Indian coal-fired power plants. The paper also compares two cooling systems i.e. wet cooling towers and air cooled condensers in their implications on plant performance parameters. To date, various studies have been conducted discussing the effect of CCS technologies in terms of cost and energy requirements in Indian context. However, with stringent water consumption regulations, there is a need for analysing the water-stress caused due to these technologies. This paper uses the Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM v9.2.1), developed at the Carnegie Mellon University, USA, to carry out a probabilistic modelling to gain insight into the water-energy nexus for CO2 capture systems in India. It is found that, in terms of cost, energy usage and water consumption, the suitability of amine based capture type is maximum. Membrane based capture technique is the most cost intensive whereas ammonia based capture is the most water intensive technology. With inclusion of cooling systems to post-combustion CO2 capture systems methods, it is noted that wet cooling towers perform better than air cooled condensers. But, in a highly water-stressed scenario, air cooled condensers will be preferable due to minimum water consumption. The paper also conducts a sensitivity analysis on the parameters that affect the choice of CO2 capture system and cooling systems such as fuel type, steam cycle heat rate and unit components of cooling systems.

Prediction of cost and emission from Indian coal-fired power plants with CO2 capture and storage using artificial intelligence techniques

Coal-fired power plants are one of the most important targets with respect to reduction of CO2 emissions. The reasons for this are that coal-fired power plants offer localized large point sources (LPS) of CO2 and that the Indian power sector contributes to roughly half of all-India CO2 emissions. CO2 capture and storage (CCS) can be implemented in these power plants for long-term decarbonisation of the Indian economy. In this paper, two artificial intelligence (AI) techniques—adaptive network based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and multi gene genetic programming (MGGP) are used to model Indian coal-fired power plants with CO2 capture. The data set of 75 power plants take the plant size, the capture type, the load and the CO2 emission as the input and the COE and annual CO2 emissions as the output. It is found that MGGP is more suited to these applications with an R2 value of more than 99% between the predicted and actual values, as against the ~96% correlation for the ANFIS approach. MGGP also gives the traditionally expected results in sensitivity analysis, which ANFIS fails to give. Several other parameters in the base plant and CO2 capture unit may be included in similar studies to give a more accurate result. This is because MGGP gives a better perspective toward qualitative data, such as capture type, as compared to ANFIS.

Economic Implications of CO2 Capture from the Existing as Well as Proposed Coal-fired Power Plants in India under Various Policy Scenarios

India is a country with rising energy needs. Much of the energy demand is met by coal and there are dynamic links between coal consumption and economic growth. However, the increasing coal use is likely to result in increasing carbon dioxide emissions. India's power sector contributes to about half of the all-India CO2 emissions. As a result, end-of-the-pipe abatement of CO2 in the power sector may be one of the prominent mechanisms to reduce India's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology may provide such a means in the Indian coal-fired power plants. This paper initially makes an effort to assess the economic implications of this technology on existing Indian coal-fired power plants. Some characteristic features of Indian power plants are identified with special reference towards CCS deployment. The importance of proximity of coal linkage and sink location from the power plant is established using the studied examples. General trends on the estimates of cost of electricity (COE), emission factor and net plant efficiency are evaluated. Subsequently, the trends in costs are projected for the next three decades for the upcoming plants using CCS. In these predictions, three scenarios of CCS deployment are considered, with varying carbon price range. In a high carbon price scenario (C price of US$ 80/t-CO2 in 2030), CCS is firmly established as a useful technology for the Indian coal-fired power plants by the year 2050.

Techno-Economic Assessment of Carbon Mitigation Options for Existing Coal-fired Power Plants in India

Abstract India's developmental needs in the near and long-term future will be strongly interlinked with the need to provide steady electricity to its cities and villages. The current fleet of Electricity Generating Units (EGUs) in India is mostly coal-based. These coal-fired power plants lead to a substantial amount of CO2 emissions. Due to international climate obligations, there might be a need to limit the amount of unmitigated CO2 emissions being emitted into the atmosphere. Mitigation of such emissions at coal-fired power plants offers an easily controllable way of reducing such emissions. The mechanisms to reduce emissions in coal-fired power plants may be through installation of super-critical units, repowering the plant with Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) or with use of coal blended with biomass. More radical emission cuts may be obtained by retrofitting the existing plants with CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS), a technology with the ability to reduce the emissions by 80-85% of the current emissions levels. This paper begins with a brief insight into some of the mechanisms to cause emission reductions in coal-fired power plants. It focuses mainly of how retrofitting the power plants with CCS technology will affect the techno-economic of the plant. Three types of plants will be analyzed, viz, Low performance, medium performance and high performance; the categorization being based on the current Indian fleet of EGUs. We analyze five pathways for mitigation, with two focusing on efficiency improvements and three on CCS technology. The results show that overall cost of avoidance for CCS ranges from US$ 59.54 to US$ 85.41 per tonne of CO2. There is a strong incentive for repowering of old plants to supercritical units and their subsequent retrofitting with CO2 capture systems than direct retrofitting of low performance plants.

Environmental life cycle assessment of Indian coal-fired power plants

Coal is the backbone of the Indian power sector. The coal-fired power plants remain the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and substantial amounts of nitrogen oxides, which are associated with climate and health impacts. Various CO2 mitigation technologies (carbon capture and storage—CCS) and SO2/NO x mitigation technologies (flue gas desulfurization and selective catalytic reduction) have been employed to reduce the environmental impacts of the coal-fired power plants. Therefore, it is imperative to understand the feasibility of various mitigation technologies employed. This paper attempts to perform environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of Indian coal-fired power plant with and without CO2, SO2 and NO x mitigation controls. The study develops new normalization factors for India in various damage categories, using the Indian emissions and energy consumption data, coupled with the emissions and particulate emission to come up with a final environmental impact of coal-fired electricity. The results show a large degree of dependence on the perspective of assessment used. The impact of sensitivities of individual substances and the effect of plant efficiency on the final LCA results is also studied.

The Impact of Electricity Sector Restructuring on Coal-fired Power Plants in India

We examine whether the unbundling of generation from transmission and distribution services at state-owned power plants in India improved operating efficiency at these power plants. Between 1995 and 2009, 85 percent of coal-based generation capacity owned by state governments was unbundled from vertically integrated State Electricity Boards into state generating companies. We find that generating units in states that unbundled before the Electricity Act of 2003 experienced reductions in forced outages of about 25% and improvements in availability of about 10%, with the largest results occurring 3-5 years after unbundling.