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UP Global Investors Summit: We will resolve issues at speed of electricity, says energy minister AK Sharma
Uttar Pradesh energy minister AK Sharma said of the total investment intents worth more than ₹32 lakh crore received by the government till Friday morning, proposals of ₹7 lakh crore were for the energy sector alone, higher than any other sector.
Taking a leaf out of Bill Gates’s book “Business @ the Speed of Thought”, Uttar Pradesh energy minister AK Sharma on Friday assured entrepreneurs signing MoUs for investing in renewable energy that his department would resolve their issues at the speed of electricity. He also said the department would continue to chase them till all the agreements signed with them were turned into projects.
Addressing a session on ‘Sustainable Development Through Renewable Energy’ in the UP Global Investors’ Summit (UPGIS) here, Sharma said he would extend all the cooperation to investors in the efforts to set up projects in the energy sector in the state.
“You walk one step and I will walk five steps,” he assured them, spelling out the new solar and bio-energy policies that the government had already issued, giving a slew of incentives and concessions to investors.
Uttar Pradesh energy minister AK Sharma said of the total investment intents worth more than ₹32 lakh crore received by the government till Friday morning, proposals of ₹7 lakh crore were for the energy sector alone, higher than any other sector.
“But all this proposed huge investment in various sectors will not succeed unless adequate electricity to run them was available in the state and here arises the need for more and more production of energy,” he said.
“While multiplication of energy is the need of the hour, efforts have to be made to meet the energy requirement from renewable sources as much as possible,” he added.
He said there were largely two options to increase energy production.
“One is to continue to produce coal-based power and contribute to the environmental pollution in the process and the second is depend on renewable sources to meet energy requirement as well as save the environment,” he said.
“Obviously, the second option is more judicious,” he said.
Adding to the minister’s remarks, additional chief secretary, energy, Mahesh Gupta said U.P. was making all the efforts to increase energy production in a diversified way to achieve the net zero emission target by 2070.
“We will soon issue a green hydrogen policy, too, to give a boost to production of clean energy in the state,” he said.
Union secretary, power, Alok Kumar, however, said that emission was bound to happen as India tried to grow and develop due to which electricity demand was growing fast, but the speed of emission needed to be slowed down. He said two-thirds of the total emission came from the energy sector.
“There are two things that can be done to deal with emissions. One, efforts should be made to produce more and more energy from non-fossil sources like solar. And two, emission intensity has to be reduced,” he suggested. He said adoption of energy efficiency by industries, especially, cement and steel, could also curb emission. The air-conditioning load was also set to increase in the state and advised industries to manage the AC load for less emissions, he said.
Kumar also suggested that U.P. must do its power procurement smartly from various sources in such a way as the final tariff burden on consumers remained low.
He told investors that they had a huge business opportunity to invest in the manufacturing sector to produce equipment needed for production as well as use of renewable especially solar power. “Do not allow this opportunity to be grabbed by China or any other country,” he urged them.
The investors present at the summit praised the governments’ solar and bio-energy policies issued recently but demanded some more concessions. Some MoUs were also exchanged on the occasion.
Among them was a ₹75,000 MoU by the NTPC to produce both fossil and non-fossil power, ₹20,000 crore by AVADA to set green hydrogen and ammonia and ₹800 crore by the Geothermal Core to produce geothermal power.
NTPC head Gurdeep Singh also expressed willingness on spot to set up a floating solar plant in the Rihand provided the reservoir was handed over to it for the purpose. The UPPCL that owns the Rihand dam agreed to the proposal in principle.
