The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has identified 200 potential sites for setting up many large thermal power plants of total 428.9 GW capacity. CEA conducted the study for identifying large pithead and coastal sites based on satellite mapping using remote sensing technology.
The thermal power stations need to be set up in future because these serve as the base load and are required for grid stabilisation in view of the government's ambitious target of having 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022.
The demand is going to increase in future as the government under the Rs 16,320 crore scheme has set a target of electrifying all households in the country by March 2019.
At present, 37 hydropower projects above 25 MW, aggregating to 12,178.5 MW, are at various stages of construction in the country. Of these, 16 projects aggregating to 5,950 MW are stalled due to various reasons.