- IACC proposes creation of a National Commission to monitor the progress of generation of energy from renewable sources
Mumbai, September 15, 2017: Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) has urged the government to set up a National Commission for monitoring the progress of generation of energy from renewable sources and for tasking the various energy intensive sectors such as railways, airports etc. to switch over to the clean energy in a time bound manner. Government impetus is also to eliminate coal dependency in the next few years.
To create newer ideations and concepts for popularizing renewable energy, IACC will be organizing a special session on renewable to coincide with its flagship annual convention being held in Mumbai on 18-19 September 2017. The session titled “Meeting India’s Energy Needs—Conventional, Renewable and Coal Dependency”, will see participation of more than 300 delegates from India and the US, and it will be addressed, among others, by Railway & Coal Minister Mr. Piyush Goyal, who has made indelible mark on the use of renewable energy in his previous assignment as the union power minister.
Stressing on this point, IACC National President Mr. N. V. Srinivasan said, ”Electricity accounts for 20% of railways operational cost and it is estimated that over Rs 41,000 crore will be saved in 10 years by increasing use of renewable energy. It is the time that a concerted effort to be made to move from conventional sources to renewable.”
Earlier this year, railways launched its first solar powered DEMU (diesel, electrical and multiple unit) train from Safdarjung station in Delhi. It is also executing a plan to generate 500MW of solar power on its land, which will power 8000 railway stations across the country.
One of the important spin offs of this move is that it will ring the order book of the renewable equipment manufacturing companies. Significantly, some of the well-known US corporations in the equipment manufacturing for renewable sources of energy have been scouting Indian market, which has a huge Chinese presence presently.
Airports are another area where renewable can be tapped to meet their huge lighting requirements. Recently, CIAL Airport in Kochi has become the first airport in India to fully meet its energy requirements during summer seasons through solar power. Many airports such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad have launched ambitious projects to meet the energy requirements from renewable sources. These airports need a large quantum of photovoltaic cells and other accessories, which can be supplied by American corporations.
Considering the amount of power consumption in India, the aging grids requires modernisation and automation to achieve multiple objectives of providing affordable and uninterrupted power to domestic, commercial, and industrial consumers. Therefore, there is pressing need for adaption of smart grids, which have been successful in minimizing transmission and distribution losses in many developed countries.
The IACC also will discuss macro aspects of the energy needs such as progress of energy generation from coal, hydropower, nuclear energy and importantly how to bring down the storage cost of the renewable energy, which is quite high these days.