Speakers at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conference to discuss energy requirements of southern States stressed the need for focus on strengthening the transmission and distribution network to meet the increasing demand for energy as it was not in proportion to power generation.
Ramesh Kymal, chairman of CII southern region sub-committee on power, renewable energy and infrastructure, said at the inaugural session that the Centre had set an ambitious target of adding 175 giga watt of renewable energy capacity by 2022 and it needed a huge investment of over $50 billion, including funds for evacuation of power generated. “Although renewable energy will grow, conventional power generation through coal, gas and hydro would remain the dominant source of energy for some more time,” Mr. Kymal felt.
In the theme address of the conference on ‘India@75: Smart, Sustainable & Affordable Power’, co-chairman of CII sub-committee S. Chandrasekhar said a recent British Petroleum study had expressed concern over countries not doing enough to address global emissions and increasing the share of renewable energy in meeting the demand, which would be one of the remedies. The installed capacity of renewable energy in the country has increased to 70 giga watt in 2017-18 from 34 giga watt in 2013-14.
Chairman of CII-Telangana Sanjay Singh said though several States were claiming to be power-surplus, they were unable to provide uninterrupted power supply to all sectors that have demand mainly due to insufficient transmission and distribution network. Stating that efforts to work out a mechanism to bundle coal, hydro, solar and wind energy were on, K. Vasudeva Rao of GreenKo Group said if successful, it would be beneficial for the energy sector as a whole.
Chairman of Telangana State Electricity Regulator Commission Ismail Ali Khan, Kameswar Rao of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Vikram Kailas of Mytrah Group, Sujoy Ghosh of First Solar, B. Rajasekhar of GreenKo Group also spoke.