We examine the costs and benefits of using washed coal at the Rihand plant, which is located in a coal-mining area and is thus not currently required to use beneficiated coal. Rihand is a 2,000 MW plant that in 2008 produced 17,000 GWh of electricity, using coal with a sulfur content of 0.39 percent and an ash content of 43 percent. We assume that using washed coal would reduce the ash content of coal burned to 35 percent and the sulfur content to 0.34 percent and would raise the heating value of coal by 17 percent. Based on information provided by the CEA, we calculate the levelized cost of electricity generation (lcoe) at Rihand using unwashed coal to be 1.206 Rs/kWh. We estimate that using washed coal increases the lcoe by 16.5 percent, to 1.405 Rs/kWh (see Appendix). Our cost analysis focuses only on the yield and direct operating costs of washing. Other researchers have found that the use of washed coal leads to significant gains in generation plant availability and plant load factor and reductions in repair costs (see, for example, Zamuda and Sharpe 2007). Our estimates take no account of these economic benefits, nor of likely rail freight savings.