Dirty Coal Chokes Most Polluted City as Cleaner Power Idles
- Polluted New Delhi runs $780 million gas plant below potential
- Surfeit of cheap coal crowding out cleaner gas power in India
Powergrid wires at the 1500 MW PPCL Gas based power plant in Bawana, New Delhi, India on May 3, 2016.
Photographer: Udit Kulshrestha/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
About 25 kilometers (16 miles) northwest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office in New Delhi, a $780 million gas-fired electricity plant that could reduce the choking pollution in India’s capital is operating at a fraction of its potential.
The 1,500 megawatt facility in Bawana ran at about a sixth of capacity on Monday, while a much older, belching coal plant some 15 kilometers southeast of central New Delhi provided the biggest share of the city’s power generation.