Energy security and climate commitment are not in conflict. CCUS on coal is the bridge.
India's coal power fleet — 210 GW of installed capacity, with an additional 30–40 GW under construction — is the backbone of India's electricity supply and the primary source of affordable power for India's 1.4 billion population. Coal currently provides approximately 70% of India's electricity generation. The economics of premature coal plant retirement in India are catastrophic: stranded asset costs, power supply deficits, economic disruption, and the abandonment of infrastructure whose construction consumed enormous quantities of capital and natural resources.
India's position at COP negotiations reflects this reality: the Panchamrit commitment at COP26 included a 2070 Net Zero target — not 2050 — precisely because India's development trajectory requires coal to remain in the energy mix longer than the OECD average. The question, therefore, is not whether India will retire its coal fleet in the near term but how it will manage coal's emissions over the period from now to whenever coal retirement becomes economically and technically feasible.
CCUS on existing coal power stations is the answer to this question — and it is more technically and economically viable in India than the global discourse suggests. India's coal plants are not uniform: some are old, inefficient, and genuinely approaching economic retirement. Others are less than 10 years old, were built with significant public investment, and have operational lives extending to 2040–2050. The latter are the priority CCUS candidates — facilities where the remaining asset life justifies capture investment and where the alternative is 20–30 more years of unabated CO₂ emissions.
India's installed coal power capacity — backbone of India's electricity supply
Coal's share of India's current electricity generation — cannot be rapidly displaced
India's Net Zero target — requiring managed coal transition, not immediate retirement
New coal capacity under construction — CCUS-ready design now prevents future retrofit cost
The optimal capture route depends on plant age, unit size, coal quality, water availability, and proximity to CO₂ storage.
The most relevant near-term option for India's existing coal fleet. MEA or advanced amine scrubbing added downstream of existing flue gas treatment. Retrofit complexity varies significantly by plant design. Best candidates: supercritical and ultra-supercritical units above 500 MW built after 2010.
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle — gasifying coal to syngas, shifting to H₂ + CO₂, capturing CO₂ pre-combustion, and burning hydrogen in a gas turbine. Higher efficiency and higher CO₂ capture rate than PCC. Best for new coal capacity additions — NTPC has studied IGCC. Capital cost premium vs. supercritical PC is the key constraint.
Converting existing PC boilers to oxy-fuel combustion — eliminating the need for post-combustion separation. Callide oxy-fuel project in Australia demonstrated the boiler retrofit pathway. Requires significant ASU capital but avoids PCC's energy penalty on steam cycle.
Designing new coal units with CCS-ready features — including space allocation for capture plant, extraction points for low-pressure steam for solvent regeneration, and CO₂ compression infrastructure — dramatically reduces future retrofit cost. NCM recommends CCS-readiness specifications for all new coal units above 500 MW.
Co-firing 10–20% biomass with coal and adding CCS creates a partial negative emissions power station. India's agricultural biomass availability — particularly bagasse from sugar mills and rice husk — makes BECCS technically feasible at many plants in UP, Maharashtra, and Punjab.
Multiple coal plants sharing CO₂ pipeline and storage infrastructure — the most important cost reduction lever for Indian coal power CCUS. NTPC's Vindhyachal, Rihand, and Singrauli plants in MP/UP are clustered within CO₂ pipeline range of potential Gondwana basin saline aquifer storage.
NCM has developed a screening methodology for India's coal power fleet that identifies CCUS priority candidates based on five criteria: remaining operating life (plants with 20+ years remaining are priority candidates); unit size (500 MW+ units are most economic for capture); plant technology (supercritical and ultra-supercritical units have better energy integration characteristics for PCC); water availability (critical constraint in water-stressed central India); and proximity to CO₂ storage (geological survey data for saline aquifer access within 200 km pipeline distance).
Applying this screening to India's published coal power fleet data identifies approximately 80–100 GW of coal capacity as high-priority CCUS candidates — primarily post-2010 supercritical and ultra-supercritical units operated by NTPC, Adani Power, Tata Power, and major state utilities in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. This priority cohort represents more than 200 MT of CO₂ per year — a CCUS opportunity of extraordinary scale.
For coal plants approaching retirement (pre-2000 units, below 200 MW, subcritical boilers), NCM's advisory focuses on a different question: how to manage the transition without stranded asset crisis. This includes life extension economics versus retirement economics, transition fuel options (natural gas peaking, pumped hydro for flexibility), and the policy framework required to allow managed retirement without the financial shocks that have destabilised coal transition programmes in other developing nations.
High-priority CCUS candidate coal capacity identified in NCM's plant screening
Annual CO₂ from priority coal CCUS candidates — India's largest single CCUS opportunity
Maximum economic CO₂ pipeline distance from plant to storage — defines cluster geography
Minimum remaining operating life for PCC retrofit to be economically justified
NCM's coal power CCUS advisory is structured at two levels. At the fleet level, we support NTPC, state utilities, and the Ministry of Power with strategic analysis of the coal CCUS opportunity — identifying priority clusters, modelling the national impact on CO₂ emissions, and designing the policy and financing framework needed for large-scale deployment. This fleet-level work draws on Australia's Callide project and the US's Boundary Dam experience as the primary operational references, adjusted for India's specific coal characteristics and grid economics.
At the plant level, NCM conducts site-specific feasibility assessments for individual coal power stations — beginning with a PCC pre-feasibility study that characterises flue gas composition, available steam extraction points, water balance, CO₂ compression requirements, and storage corridor options. This plant-level assessment is the foundation for investment decisions, DFI financing applications, and regulatory submissions.
NCM is also engaged with NTPC on the design of India's first coal power CCUS demonstration project — a 500 MW unit with integrated post-combustion capture and CO₂ storage in a Gondwana basin saline aquifer. This demonstration project, structured for ADB co-financing under the Energy Transition Mechanism, is intended to provide the proof of concept that unlocks large-scale Indian coal CCUS deployment across the 80–100 GW priority cohort.
Whether you are a government body seeking policy advice, an industrial company facing CBAM exposure, or an investor seeking CCUS project opportunities — our team is ready to engage.