A recent study has revealed that targeting the most harmful power plants in India could lead to substantial reductions in mortality caused by air pollution. The study found that just 30 power plants, responsible for generating only 3% of the country’s electricity, contribute to about a quarter of the health burden from air pollution.
India is grappling with some of the worst air pollution levels globally, primarily due to its heavy reliance on coal for electricity generation. Nearly three-quarters of India’s coal consumption is used for electricity production. Despite regulations introduced in 2015 to curb air pollutants like sulfur and mercury, less than 5% of India’s power plants have adopted modern pollution control technologies.
The research, conducted by Stanford University, aimed to identify which power plants disproportionately contribute to the country’s mortality burden. Lead author Kirat Singh explained that the goal was to pinpoint the plants driving the most significant health impacts to inform targeted interventions.
The researchers assessed the impacts of all power plants and simulated the effects of switching off each plant individually, a computationally intensive task that took three months to complete using the university’s computing resources. The findings confirmed that certain power plants were significantly more harmful than others, with their impact ranging from one or two extra deaths per year to as many as 670. Notably, about a quarter of the health burden came from plants generating just 3% of India’s electricity.
These highly polluting plants typically burn low-quality lignite and emit large amounts of sulfur pollution. Surprisingly, the age of the power plant did not correlate with the level of health damage.
Singh emphasized the importance of prioritizing emission reductions at the most damaging units. Implementing pollution control technologies or replacing these plants with zero-emissions alternatives could lead to substantial reductions in mortality.
In 2021, the Indian government updated its regulations to focus on power plants within 10 kilometers of cities with populations over one million. However, Singh’s study showed that this approach missed many of the most harmful plants, which are predominantly located in southern India. The study suggests that shifting electricity generation from the most to the least harmful power plants could reduce premature deaths by about 5,866 annually in Tamil Nadu and by around 8,000 across the four most impacted states.
Despite plans to increase coal-generated electricity by 50% between 2018 and 2030, avoiding the construction of these new plants could prevent an estimated 844,000 premature deaths.
Dr. Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water in New Delhi, highlighted the rapid growth of renewable energy in India, which expanded by 388% in the past decade. He noted that greater investment in clean energy could help India achieve its clean electricity targets, improve public health, and stimulate a green economic transformation.
Prof. Drew Shindell of Duke University, who chairs the scientific advisory panel to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, commented that decarbonization presents an opportunity to improve well-being both immediately through better air quality and in the long term by mitigating climate change.
