EMISSION NORMS FOR COAL-BASED THERMAL POWER PLANTS

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Context: Almost seven years since the notification, not even 7 per cent of India’s coal capacity meets the standards issued by the MoEF&CC.

Details:

• The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), in its 2015 notification, introduced emission norms for coal-based thermal power plants (TPP).
• The TPPs were given a deadline of December 2017 to mandatorily comply with the norms for SO2, NOx, PM, Hg and water.
• Central Electricity Authority (CEA) — nodal agency under the Ministry of Power to monitor implementation of 2015 norms — only reports on compliance status of SO₂while other parameters go unreported.
• The progress of SO₂compliance is measured in terms of the status of installation of flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) unit that removes SO₂ from plant stack.
• The lack of information on other parameters has led to the ‘installation of FGD’ becoming the yardstick for compliance with emission norms.
• The cost implications and the unavailability of equipment in the case of FGD and demand for location specific SO₂standards, have often been used as ‘reasonable grounds’ to dissuade compliance with emission norms in the past.
• These strategies have completely disregarded the possibility of compliance with the other parameters within the pre-fixed deadlines.
• With this as a premise, MoEF&CC, vide another notification in March 2021, revised the deadline for meeting the norms.
• The revised notification advocated for differentiated deadlines for power plants disaggregated into three categories — Category A, Category B and Category C — based on their locations. 
• Almost four months untill the deadline, a whopping 47 per cent of 20,637 MW coal power capacity under Category A is still not in a position to commission FGD even in another two years.
• Interestingly, unlike the plausible likelihood of violation by huge coal capacity under Category A, a 77 per cent of the coal capacity under Category B is likely to install FGD by 2023. However, further analysis shows the precarious balance that these plants are in with respect to the installation of FGD.
• In the case of Category-C plants, 75 per cent of the capacity is likely to meet the norms. Sixteen per cent of the capacity is unlikely to meet the standards by 2024.

 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/energy/are-we-equipped-to-meet-2022-deadline-on-emission-standards--84449