Andhra Pradesh, which is at the forefront in renewable energy generation in the country, has added as much as 5,000 MW of installed capacity during the past three years since 2014, according to Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary, Energy.
He was delivering the keynote address at the two-day summit - Energising South 2017 - which began here on Friday. The summit was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The theme of the conference was 'Economic growth: Smart, reliable and sustainable power'.
He said the State in particular was leading in solar power generation, with a 1,000-MW solar park coming up in Kurnool district. "It can now safely be said that AP is a energy-secure State. In fact, the country as a whole is now more energy-secure than ever, with the increase in power generation through renewable sources," he said.
Ajay Jain remarked that "the country as a whole, and AP in particular, has now moved to a power-surplus situation, even though the per-capita energy consumption is still low and even now there are households in many villages in the country which have no power connection. However, all the villages and towns in AP have been electrified and all households in the State have a power connection."
He remarked, "In the power sector, four As are important - availability of power, accessibility, affordability and accountability. All the four have to be taken care of. Now, with plenty of power, the prime issue is pricing. The AP Government has promised that there would not be any more hike in power tariff."
He said the State was also focusing on energy efficiency. Even though it would lead to contraction of demand, LED lights were being installed in all towns and villages. Solar pumpsets were being in the villages for farm operations.
Kamalakar Babu, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of AP Ltd, said the Union Government had set a target of 175 GW (100 GW of solar power, 60 GW of wind power, and 15 GW from hydel and other sources) by 2021-22.
"Andhra Pradesh's target is generating 10,000 MW of renewable energy by 2018 and 18,000 MW by 2021-22. There is still untapped potential in the State," he said.
S Chandrasekhar, Chairman of the conference, gave an overview of the power situation in the country.
K Venugopal, Co-Chairman, of the Power Sub-committee of the CII, South, said electric vehicles would rescue the power sector as they would create the necessary demand. He lauded the efforts of AP Government in the renewable energy segment.
J S R K Prasad, Chairman of CII, AP, and Amit Kumar, of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, also spoke.