India is delaying a plan to have coal-fired power plants operate at reduced rates when solar generation is at its highest, due to uncertainties about how to compensate coal plants for running at minimum levels, according to minutes from government meetings reviewed by Reuters.
India, which relies on coal for about 60% of its power generation, has seen booming solar capacity additions in recent years and plans a massive buildout to quadruple solar capacity by 2035.
As the country looks to have more of this solar capacity contributing to power output, the government has been considering curtailing generation from coal-fired plants under a coal flexibility plan.
However, the coal power plants would need to be compensated for reducing their utilization rates to 40% from 55%, and authorities are not sure how. Separately, the industry is concerned about the coal plants’ safety operations with these reduced rates and about the investment they would have to pour into making such plants flexible-generation facilities, per the documents and minutes Reuters’ reporters have reviewed.
India has thus shelved the ‘flexible coal’ plan for a year, as it has not come up with regulation about how the coal plants would be compensated for retrofitting and maintenance if they are supposed to run at 40% utilization rate, down from 55%.
“India’s experience in 2025 signalled that limited system flexibility will present a growing barrier to solar integration without prudent planning,” green energy think tank Ember said in a report earlier this year.
Ember’s analysis showed that the system operator was not able to turn down non-solar generation sufficiently to fully accommodate midday solar while keeping enough coal capacity online to meet evening demand.
India last year hit a major milestone of having more than half of its power generation capacity coming from non-fossil fuels. Grid security reasons, however, led to a notable amount of renewable energy curtailed in 2025, Ember noted.
“The future ability of the Indian power system to absorb the constantly increasing midday renewable energy generation, especially solar, will depend on the deployment of flexibility solutions,” the think tank said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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