Keeping the Lights On

What you’re looking at. Each bar of the stack is a fuel source’s output for the month, in billion units (BU — one unit is a kilowatt-hour); the top of the stack is total conventional generation. Coal and gas (“thermal”) supply roughly four-fifths of it and set the baseline; hydro is the seasonal wave that fills every monsoon and thins out by winter; nuclear is the steady sliver; imports are mostly hydropower from Bhutan. The coal-utilisation view shows thermal plant load factor — the share of their capacity coal and gas plants are actually running at — which has climbed from barely half in 2020 to 80%-plus in recent summers as demand outpaces new thermal capacity. Figures are CEA’s monthly generation report; the most recent month is provisional until CEA finalises it. This series does not include solar, wind or small-hydro (renewable) generation, which CEA reports under a separate account.