Due to the rapid growth of electricity demand and the absence of regulations, sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants in India have increased notably in the past decade. In this study, we present the first interannual comparison of SO2 emissions and the satellite SO2 observations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) for Indian coal-fired power plants during the OMI era of 2005–2012. A detailed unit-based inventory is developed for the Indian coal-fired power sector, and results show that its SO2 emissions increased dramatically by 71% during 2005–2012.

Driven by rapid economic development and growing electricity demand, NOx emissions (E) from the power sector in India have increased dramatically since the mid-1990s. In this study, we present the NOx emissions from Indian public thermal power plants for the period 1996–2010 using a unit-based methodology and compare the emission estimates with the satellite observations of NO2 tropospheric vertical column densities (TVCDs) from four spaceborne instruments: GOME, SCIAMACHY, OMI, and GOME-2. Results show that NOx emissions from Indian power plants increased by at least 70% during 1996–2010.