India recorded overall power deficit of 0.7% in first seven months of the current fiscal. As per information provided by Power Minister Piyush Goyal, 681.34 Billion Units (BU) were available against the power demand of 686.09 BU during the April-October period this fiscal. In 2015-16, this deficit was 2.1%.
The government has planned to make the country energy surplus with generating target to achieve overall electricity surplus in 2016-17. According to the Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR) for 2016-17, the Centre has set a target of generating 1,178 BU with overall surplus of 1.1% and peak surplus of 2.6%.
Besides, the average Plant Load Factor (PLF or proportion of capacity utilisation) of thermal power plants (coal/lignite) during 2016-17 (April - October, 2016) was 59.17% and the PLF for gas based power plants during 2016-17 (April - October, 2016) was 23.59%.