India is burning through its coal buffer

This September was supposed to give India's power grid a break. Instead, on some nights, the gap between the electricity people wanted and what the grid could supply reached almost 8 gigawatts, bigger than anything seen during this year's heatwaves. Kerala restricted power in the evenings. Near Patna, villagers blocked a highway after three days without electricity. And 82 power plants were running critically low on coal, with barely a week's worth left.

Strangely, India isn't short of coal. About 76 million tonnes sits at Coal India's mines. But a weak monsoon drained the dams and flooded the coal belt at the same time.

So how much breathing room is there between you and a power cut?

This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash.

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