Vijayawada: AP Genco has increased coal stocks in thermal plants, keeping in view the needs of the summer season. The thermal plants, which struggled to manage power generation with poor stocks in the past, have now the cushion of huge coal stocks due to advance planning.While power consumption is expected to dip in the next few months with the onset of winter, AP Genco plans to continue to procure coal stocks to increase its buffer. All major thermal plants have already enhanced their coal stocks, which can last for 15-20 days, and have placed indents to continue the procurements, which will take the overall buffer to a level sufficient for a month.Thermal plants in the state used to struggle with poor stocks for the last few years with very little coal stocks to last just 2-3 days. As a plant takes nearly 10 days to restart after a shutdown, authorities used to wait with anxiety for arrival of fresh stocks from Mahanadi Coalfields in Odisha. Taking previous experiences into consideration, chief secretary K Vijayanand directed AP Genco authorities to ready an action plan to ensure that sufficient stocks are kept as buffer by procuring coal stocks in advance. Due to the proactive steps, coal stocks at Narla Tatarao thermal power station, which were around 75-90 thousand metric tonnes in 2022 and 2023, have jumped to an all-time high of 4.5 lakh metric tonnes by Aug. AP Genco increased the stocks to around 3 lakh metric tonnes last year and further increased the buffer to 4.5 lakh tonnes. The stocks are sufficient to last for 12-15 days of power generation in case of emergency. “We will continue to get the stocks as suggested by the chief secretary to be in a comfortable position to meet the high demand during summer,” said a senior AP Genco official.Similarly, coal stocks at Rayalaseema thermal power station in Kadapa have also grown to 2.8 lakh metric tonnes from 62,000 metric tonnes two years ago. The stocks at Damodaram Sanjeevaiah super thermal power plant at Krishnapatnam has also seen an increase from 47,000 metric tonnes to 77,000 metric tonnes. Officials are working to further shore up stocks in all thermal power plants in the state in the coming months.GFXEastern Coalfields in West Bengal and Jharkhand to supply coal to AP Genco instead of Mahanadi Coalfields in OdishaCoal from Eastern CoalFields is considered to be of high grade, while that from Mahanadi is washed coalAP Genco increased power generation by 8.3 percent during 2024-25Thermal plants generated 3,569 million units in April, 3,065 million units in May, 2,952 million units in June, 3,123 million units in July, and 3,461 million units in Aug 2025Increased power generation has reduced govt’s power purchase burden
