Union Power Minister Shri Manohar Lal urged states, that lack coal resources, to explore other nuclear-based power plant setups. This comes at a time when the government has set ambitious goals for clean energy and is focusing on reducing the country's overall carbon emissions.
He also pointed out the need to identify and list power utilities to attract investments and meet the rising energy demands during the Conference of Power Ministers of States and Union Territories.
This is not the first time, the government has pushed states to explore other avenues to meet the ever-increasing power demand.
Even in the Union Budget, the central government proposed to establish small-scale nuclear reactors to address the rising energy demands, largely through collaboration with private players. The minister has also asked states to boost renewable energy capacity.
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"The government of India is committed to achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel power by 2030, enhancing energy storage solutions, and integrating more renewable energy into the grid. A comprehensive plan has already been finalized to address transmission requirement for evacuation of renewable energy. However, in order to bring renewable energy to consumers, a comprehensive plan for intra-state transmission is also needed," said Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, Minister of state for power and NRE as per the government release.
He also mentioned that states need to periodically evaluate the development progress of their downstream networks to ensure alignment with the Interstate Transmission System (ISTS) network.
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Ever-increasing Power Demand
India, he said, has met an all-time high demand of 250 GW in May this year, which will rise further.
Out of 250 GW of power demand, fossil fuels-based power accounted for 200 GW in May, while the remaining came from renewable sources.
Addressing a conference of state power ministers, Lal said a large amount of funds would be needed to meet the rising power demand in the country.
The minister said the power sector would need an investment of Rs 42 lakh crore by 2030 to meet the growing electricity demand.
Further, he stated that Gujarat and Haryana have proposed to get their power utilities listed on bourses to raise funds.
(With inputs from PTI)
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