Identifying coal plants for early retirement in India: A multidimensional analysis of technical, economic, and environmental factors

Nada Maamoun, Puneet Chitkara, Joonseok Yang, Gireesh Shrimali, Joshua Busby, Sarang Shidore, Yana Jin and Johannes Urpelainen

Applied Energy, 2022, vol. 312, issue C, No S030626192200112X

Abstract: Coal-fired energy generation is the backbone of India’s power sector and considered a driver of its economic development. However, it is associated with detrimental environmental and health impacts in India and its fleet is currently struggling with overcapacity and inefficiency problems. One solution to address these challenges is the early retirement of some of India’s coal-fired power plants. In this paper, we introduce multidimensional indices that identify plants for retirement based on comprehensive criteria that include technical and economic characteristics of plants as well as their environmental impacts. We implement an ensemble approach, where we formulate 8008 indices based on all possible combination of seven relevant parameters and rank plants accordingly. This approach facilitates a comprehensive analysis of the plants’ performance on different parameters and provides a new outlook on plant retirements that differs from the common approach of retiring plants based solely on technical characteristics such as age, capacity, and heat rate. Our results show that top plants recommended for early retirement are typically 7 years older, 13% more expensive and have around 40% higher population exposure to emissions compared to an average plant in India. We estimate the potential costs saved from the retirement of the worst-performing 50 GW of generating capacity to be $21 billion resulting from shifting ownership towards a cheaper cost of capital and replacing coal by more competitive sources such as solar power.

Keywords: Coal energy; Retirement Pathways; Air pollution; Climate Change; Cost Savings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 Q41 Q42 Q48 Q53 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.118644

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