India produced approximately 103.4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in August. This marks a month-on-month decline of 5.1 billion kilowatt hours (-5%) and is down year-on-year by 2.1 million kilowatt hours (-2%). While the year-on-year contraction in electricity production is a negative development, the contraction is not nearly as large as was seen in earlier this year. During April through June, electricity production declined year-on-year by an average of 18%.
Of note is coal-derived electricity production totaled approximately 78.9 billion kilowatt hours. This marks a month-on-month decline of 6.8 billion kilowatt hours (-8%) and is down year-on-year by 1.6 billion kilowatt hours (-2%). As with India’s overall electricity production, coal-derived electricity production did not decline by nearly as much last month as was seen earlier this year. During April through June, India’s coal-derived electricity production declined year-on-year by an average of 22%.
India’s hydropower production last month totaled approximately 19.4 billion kilowatt hours. This marks a month-on-month increase of 1.5 billion kilowatt hours (8%) but is down year-on-year by 400 million kilowatt hours (-2%). August has marked the first month since May where India’s hydropower production has contracted on a year-on-year basis. As we have been examining in our recent Weekly Dry Bulk Reports work, India has been receiving much more rainfall than usual and this has caused some hydropower plants to shut down. As we also discussed last month, India’s Telangana Srisailam hydropower plant shut down in August due to a tragic fire which killed nine people.