[sremani]

1. Most Indian power generation is Coal, there are hydel, and Nuclear is stuck in Gen2 (thanks to sanctions due to Nuke testing - the current Gen is 5)

2. There is scarcity of Coal, and Coal that is mined in India is high-soot

3. The demand for electricity outstrips Supply.

4. The supply never caught up with the demand because Transmission lines are owned by Government(state-level) and there is rampant theft

5. Because of theft and subsidies money is lost by government and the more the cost of generation the more loss the government will incur, so renewable is mostly costed out till recently.

There is hope though, Russia is building six nuclear power plants in India, more dams are coming online and investments in Renewables have increased.

Once distributed solar becomes affordable, the electricity owes in many parts of India would diminish or become tolerable.

[rahulsidhu]

I am afraid this picture is far from accurate. Power plants on the whole are running at a very low PLF for some time. Very cheap power is available in the short term markets[1]. The transmission system has also improved in the last two years and now prices are more or less uniform across the country[1].

Last mile distribution infrastructure is still a WIP in many places but the real problem is financial. Many distribution companies are owned by state govts. and unable to charge/recover for the electricity they distribute. This incentivizes them to procure/supply as little power as possible. Many states have now opted for a financial restructuring [2] and I expect demand will pick up sharply.

[1] http://www.vidyutpravah.in/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujwal_DISCOM_Assurance_Yojana

[sremani]

#2 may be outdated. #3 can be debated, but there were brown-outs and black-outs during the summer.

Things have improved, but the pace is not something to write home about.

[intended]

Complaining about pace is moving the goal posts here, and yes power shortages are a lot scarcer.

I sell gensets in the southern states and the market is shrinking.

Additionally what's being missed in this entire chain is that the new CPCB norms were released a few years ago and all gensets sold in india now conform to it one way or the other.

To still add to this - most gensets don't run as much as they are able to. For a majority of sets they run very little in the span of years.

The OP gave an example where power was not given to a mall due to corruption, not lack of power.

[nimos]

I'm not sure there is really a scarcity of coal. Market prices are low by historical standards and India is currently looking at ways to expand coal exports because of overproduction and record stockpiles at power plants.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-05/world-s-bi...