Endangered Waters - Greenpeace

Endangered Waters
Greenpeace India
11
“A typical 4,000 MW Ultra Mega Power Plant would
consume around 110 million cubic metres of water per
year, or the water of 22,000 hectares of irrigated land.”
Table 1: Comparative water consumption by typical sub-critical coal plants in India and Australia
Water consumption
Water consumption per
MW (m3 / MWh)
By a 1000 MW plant
(MCM/year) c
Equivalent irrigation water
(hectares of farmland) a
Majority of coal plants
operating in India
Some more recent coal
plants in India
5-7 43.8 - 61.3 8,760 - 12,264
3.5-4 30.6 – 35.0 6,132 – 7,008
Typical Australian coal plant 1.9 16.6 NA b
a
Calculating 5000m 3 to irrigate one hectare of single-cropped land over the course of a year.
b
The amount of water required to irrigate land in Australia and India may be different.
c
Assuming a 100% plant load factor.
Source: CEA/ Water Report, 2012, Smart, A. and Adam. A. Water and the electricity generation industry. Waterlines Report Series
no 18. National Water Commission, Australian Government. August 2009
In contrast, typical freshwater consumption
by similar plant in Australia (sub-critical,
recirculating, wet-cooling, 1,000 MW coalbased
plant in similarly warm climate and
water-scarce conditions) is just 1.9 cubic
metres per hour per MW. 11
This is half of the water consumed by more
‘modern’ Indian coal plants, and less than
a third of older plants, which make up the
majority of installed coal power in India.
2.2 India’s thermal power boom
India’s Five Year Plans anticipate adding huge
amounts of electrical capacity; both to fuel the
steep growth desired in GDP and to plug the
existing energy deficit, which peaks at 12%. 12
The main source of the country’s energy to
date has been coal, and it is clear that the level
of government commitment to the fuel is not
only continuing, but increasing. Characterised
by ambitious targets and liberal sanctions,
India’s thermal power boom comes with a vast
consumptive water footprint.
Nearly 41 GW of coal capacity was added
during the five years of the 11 th Plan (2007-
2012). 13 By the end of the 11 th Plan, thermal
power accounted for 66% of the country’s
total installed capacity, within which 85%
was based on coal. 14 This is a slightly greater
share than five years previously, when coal
accounted for 82.6% 15 of the country’s
installed thermal capacity.
The approach paper of the 12 th Five Year Plan,
which envisages the 2012 to 2017 period,
recommends the addition of a further 100
GW across energy sources, including a 28
GW backlog from the previous plan. 16 Even
if the share of coal were anticipated to be a
more modest 80%, this will involve 80 GW of
new coal capacity: almost double that added
during the previous Plan. Even if we assume
that all new plants will have the lower water
consumption value of 3.5-4 cubic metres per
MW suggested by the CEA, 17 an additional 80
GW of coal capacity would require between
2.5 and 2.8 billion cubic metres of water per
year. If we assume approximately 70% of this
is inland and therefore using freshwater, this
is the irrigation equivalent of up to 400,000
hectares of farmland. That’s one seventh of
the area under food grain production in Tamil
Nadu. 18