Centre reviews Rs 2.5 lakh cr sulphur-cutting programme for coal plants

New Delhi: India is reviewing a decade-old $30 billion (approximately Rs 2.5 lakh crore) programme requiring coal-fired power plants to install equipment to cut sulphur emissions after government-backed studies showed they had little impact on curbing pollution, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

Nearly 540 power plant units were required by 2026 to install flue-gas desulphurization (FGD) systems that remove sulphur from the plants' exhaust gases but only about 8 per cent have done so, including those run by state-run NTPC and privately held JSW Power.

The government previously said expensive foreign technology and manpower were some of the hurdles in achieving the target. But with cities like New Delhi and Kanpur some of the most polluted in the world, India's government is under pressure to reduce the impact of the sectors' emissions.

Instead of FGDs, government officials have proposed deploying locally made electrostatic precipitators that remove fine particles such as dust and smoke from emissions and are one-fifth of the cost of an FGD system, according to a document from the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Indian government summarising a Nov. 13 meeting between the Office and the ministries of power, coal and the environment.

Representatives of the ministries and Ajay Kumar Sood, the principal scientific adviser to the government who chaired the meeting, did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

The document showed several of the attendees agreed Indian power plants would be better off focusing on cutting emissions of tiny particulate matter that can lodge deep in the lungs rather than on sulphur reductions.

"This is due to the predominance of other pollution sources in urban areas and the very low sulphur content of Indian coal coupled with the effective dispersion of (sulphur dioxide) generated from thermal power plants due to the tall stacks and the climactic conditions in India," the document cited R. Srikanth, the head of the engineering school at India's National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), as saying.

Srikanth did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The document cited a NIAS study that said Indian coal, which is used to generate 92 per cent of the country's thermal power, has a sulphur content of only 0.5 per cent. The range globally is 0.5 per cent to 5 per cent.

The study said the coal's high ash content was a bigger problem for power plants, and high-efficiency electrostatic precipitators would be better at curbing that pollution.

The document also cited government-backed studies by the NIAS, Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Delhi and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute that showed power plants with the FGD systems showed negligible improvement in air quality. A FGD system costs 12 million rupees ($141,000) per megawatt of capacity.

Insisting on FGDs could hamper India's goal of increasing coal-fired capacity by 37 per cent by 2032 to meet surging power demand, it said.

A decision will be made based on further consultations, the document showed. India's government policy think tank, NITI Aayog, earlier this year proposed halting FGD installations.

The document also showed that while the government is working on its decision, the power ministry last month asked the environment ministry to extend the deadline for FGD installation by another three years beyond 2026. The original deadline was 2017.

Environmental groups say coal-fired plants account for about 80 per cent of industrial emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides in India, which cause lung disease and acid rain. According to a 2019 Greenpeace report, India was the world's largest emitter of sulphur dioxide, with most coming from coal-fired power plants.

IIT Delhi said in its report that in the longer term, the focus should be on cleaner-energy sources and India should phase out older and less efficient coal-based plants.

"The installation of FGD systems and carbon capture technologies should not be used as a smokescreen to justify the continued power generation from these unsustainable, CO2-intensive sources," it said in its report, which was reviewed by Reuters.

($1 = 85.1080 Indian rupees)